a river of stones

A new home for our small stone posts

2011-09-15T15:38:00.001+01:00

To keep things simple, we will be blogging about small stones at our main site, Writing Our Way Home, from this day forth.

Do hop over there to find out more about the January '12 river, small stones, and to read about our future projects. You can also snag this delicious badge for your blog. Go see!

Gorgeous watercolours & family blogging

2011-08-05T13:34:00.000+01:00

I wanted to share these watercolours with you, which Claire Marriott painted on a recent trip to Aquitaine. Each deliberately naïve painting has a small stone woven in between the colours. You can see the rest of Claire's lovely watercolours here. Has anyone else combined their small stones with images?

And I also wanted to share a special river-of-stones blog with you, from our youngest river participant (as far as I know!) Stuart at Pebble Finder. Writing small stones is a family affair, as his mum Josephine (Pebbleorium) and his sister Willow (Searching for Secret Passageways) also have beautiful blogs. I'll leave you with a few of Stuart's small stones - enjoy! And keep writing...

*

Finishing a series
I shut the book and wonder.
"What now?"

*

Two days ago.
On a road trip.
We stop at a restroom.
I wash my hands in the sink.
A frog pokes his head out of the overflow drain.

*

Sunset gives the clouds a pink outline.
Shapes appear wherever you look.
This one has the head of a fish and the body of a bird.
Wait... it doesn't have any legs.

*

A whole large bowl of watermelon
Gone!
I don't feel too good any more.

We are all in this together

2011-08-02T10:07:00.000+01:00

Fiona writes: I'm avoiding writing my novel. I put 'fiona robyn' into Google just now (I'm an ego-googlaholic). I found this!

A wonderful piece by Lara about how we are all swimming in the River of Life, and how writing small stones is another way of remembering this.

Thank you, Lara, for encouraging us to bless someone today.

"It can be a huge favor or a tiny piece of chocolate. It can be a gift, a glance, a smile, a ride."

Just like the home-grown runner beans my friend Anna gave us yesterday, and which I shall be eating for my dinner - cooked until tender, and dripping with butter.

Be kind to each other out there.

The end, or the beginning?

2011-07-30T18:28:00.002+01:00

The July river of stones finishes tomorrow.

You might have taken part this time, and you might not have. You might have religiously written a small stone every day, or had a few false starts, or written three and then forgotten about it completely.

It doesn't matter.

If you let them, small stones will help you to connect with the world one teensy moment at a time. They will work on you at their own pace.

Every time you pause to notice the exact texture of an egg, or the glittering thread of drool hanging from your happy cat's chin (yuk!), and wonder how you'd write it down, can be counted as a tiny triumph.

Even if you've had ONE of these moments this month, one that you wouldn't have otherwise experienced, then we'll be very happy.

We're always pleasd to hear from people - do let us know by email (Fiona or Kaspa) or in the comments section how you found the experience.

If you'd like to take your writing practice to another level, you could join one of our month-long self-study ecourses starting on Monday - Eastern Therapeutic Writing with Kaspa (koans, Japanese poetry and Morita therapy) or Writing Ourselves Alive with Fiona (curiosity, honesty, compassion & passion).

If you don't get a jiggle on quickly enough they'll repeat later in the year - here's the rest.

We won't be posting here again for a while, until we've cooked up the next project for our river. We would like it very much if you'd follow us over to the Writing Our Way Home blog, and you could also try Fiona's weekly inspirational newsletter, or come and say hi at our community.

Thank you for reading our blog, and for being a very important drop in the river.

Can we ever really 'see clearly'? (a question, not an answer)

2011-07-29T11:12:00.000+01:00

(photo by MontyPython)

A post from the archive by Kaspa:

By way of the grape vine I heard someone asking "Does knowing we're going to write about it take away from really seeing what's there, in the moment?".

I think that's a really interesting question, but it points to a deeper question for me "Can we ever really see what's there?"

Years ago I used to sit a lot of zazen. Zazen is the meditation of Zen Buddhism, where one just sits. When a thought comes up, you let it go. When another thought come up, you let that go too. I imagined that if I let everything go I would reach a place of clarity. A place where I could simply be in the world and engage with the world without my own thoughts and prejudices getting in the way.

I think that we probably can wipe the grosser stains of our wind-shields, and see through the glass into the world more clearly. But I'm no longer convinced we can get rid of the glass

In fact I literally have to look through glass, through a pair of glasses, to see the world clearly. I think this is where the edge is for me. Along with the habits of seeing that I talked about in my last post (Walk in Someone Else's Shoes) we each have a physical body and how we receive the world is mediated by our senses and then interpreted by our brains to give our conscious mind an experience that makes sense.

So we have a uniquely human experience of each moment, by virtue of our human bodies. And I believe we have a uniquely personal experience of each moment by virtue of our individual histories. Is it possible to let go of those stories, those traumas and celebrations, entirely?

Today I'm leaning towards answering 'No'. But what we can do is recognise all those parts of ourselves and treat them with more care, and appreciate them as the compost from which our poetry can be fed.

None of this answers the original question of course. This post is already quite long, so perhaps that first question deserves its own post - either that or you can argue it out in the comments below....

"Does knowing we're going to write about it take away from really seeing what's there, in the moment?"

(Have a look at what people thought last time here and let us know what you think!)

Writing isn't always a piece of cake

2011-07-27T14:48:00.011+01:00

Any excuse to post a picture of a piece of cake....

But it's true. Writing small stones, or anything, can be difficult.

It certainly is for me. Some days, I'd rather do anything than sit down at my computer and begin the first sentence.

Why is this? I think a lot of the reason is that when we write, we are trying to say what's true for us. We are putting something out there that people can look at, and have opinions about. We are exposing our vulnerable underbellies, just like our cat Fatty who lies with his paws in the air and dares you to touch him...

This is also why writing is important.

Writing gives us an opportunity to share these vulnerable parts. It gives us an opportunity to find our truth, whatever that might be.

So keep writing small stones. Keep working on your novel. Keep writing in your journal. Get support. Carry on.

We all find it difficult. You're in good company.

Can we look anew?

2011-07-22T15:00:00.001+01:00

There is a part of everything which is unexplored, because we are accustomed to using our eyes only in association with the memory of of what people before us have thought we were looking at.

Flaubert, quoted in preface to Pierre and Jean, in Maupassant's 'The Novel'

A post from the archive by Kaspa:
James Wood quotes Flaubert in How Fiction Works. Wood attributes the rise of the modern novel to Flaubert. But what interested me was the observation above, in a section where Wood is talking about the satisfaction of specific detail. I'll come back to that in another post.

Our minds are the repositories of stories. We tell stories about people we know, we imagine we know their lives, outer and inner. We tell stories about the places we live in, and about the jobs we do. The most powerful of these stories has to do with how we feel about ourself, "...this is the sort of person I am". This most powerful of stories tends to be at the heart of all the stories we tell.

Each time we encounter something in the world, a loved one, the view from a mountain top, a favourite book in a library, we receive it through the eyes of these stories. I am the person who loves you, we have this history together... and so on.

Flaubert's point is that we not only encounter the world through these personal stories, but that we encounter the world through the eyes and memories of others. We inherit stories, from our peers, from our parents and increasingly from the media.

When we see the Union Jack flying, we have a sense of history, of an Empire perhaps and whatever feelings that might bring up, pride or shame. We are full of stories. Who amongst us would only see a few red and blue triangles, printed onto a white rectangle of fabric?

There is a part of each thing which is hidden from us. We obscure with stories, as much as we enlighten with them.

The act of really paying attention is not to ignore these stories, but to see the transparency of them, to see them but to look beyond to the mystery too.

What mysteries will you uncover today?

Writing to help us slow down and see

2011-07-21T15:00:00.003+01:00

White moon, bright moon, pearling the air, on Flickr

light of the moon

moves west - flowers' shadows

creep eastward

Buson

Kaspa writes: When I look at the world, I look through a forest of thoughts. Perhaps there is a patch of clear light in the distance, but more often than not what I see is coloured by unconscious judgments. Either that or my mind is so frenetic, bouncing from worries about the future to thoughts of the past, that I don't see anything at all.

Putting pen to paper can help me cut through the forest of thoughts so that I can really see the world.

The Japanese word seijaku is usually translated simply as calmness, but perhaps a more accurate translation is 'calmness in the midst of busyness'.

It's easy to be calm when you're on a beach watching the sunset, and listening to the waves gently lapping the shore. It's less easy to find that space in the midst of our ordinary working lives. Creating a space for writing poetry in the middle of my busy life helps me to find some calm. Some seijaku.

Sit down. Take a few deep breaths and really look at the world. Experiment with writing slowly, with taking time over each letter. Ask yourself, in what direction are the shadows of the flowers falling? Slow down and fall in love with the world.

When I do this, sometimes I'm really able to connect deeply with what's in front of me.

Sometimes my thoughts are unremitting though. My experience is that if my mind doesn't settle my thoughts are usually telling me something important. In these cases I can use writing to help me unravel what's going on.

The moon, alone,
Taunts me from the heavens
With memories of you;
Should you feel the same, then
Our hearts would be as one.

Saigyo

In August I'll be running my online course in Eastern Therapeutic Writing again. One of the most popular parts last time was the waka module, where we looked at how using Japanese forms of poetry can help us connect with ourselves and world. We also experiment with Naikan to help with our relationships with others, and Morita to help us act in the world, as well as working with personal koans.

I got some great feedback from students last time. Find out more here.

Delicious words

2011-07-20T14:20:00.016+01:00

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

*

This poem is calling out to be read out loud. Do it. And then hear it being read here.

Words are gorgeous. Dapple-dawn-drawn falcon. Chevalier. Gash gold-vermilion. Taste them properly. Delicious, delicious.

Today, when you notice your small stone, I'd like you to try and enjoy the lusciousness of words as much as you can. Which words sound better together? What order? Read them out loud. Do they work? Do they need to be tweaked?

Mmmm, words.

If you feel moved to do so, it'd be lovely if you shared them in the comments section below.

Are you failing?

2011-07-15T15:00:00.000+01:00

(if you're new it's not too late to start writing small stones - go here)

A post from the archive from Fiona:

Are you failing?

"I know that of what I've written so far, most are not actually small stones. Like I said at the beginning, maybe it's enough to write something every day, but I'm not even managing that. Have I failed already then? I don't think so. I am looking more closely and I am thinking more clearly, whether I write it down or not. So, I'm not going to beat myself up but be grateful for the space to reflect on such things. I've been in a pretty negative place lately and that has already changed. I'm feeling grateful for all sorts of things and a joy that has long been absent has reappeared. There are glimpses of hope and so I press on, trying to be more disciplined in my daily writing and reflecting on it's value. Perhaps other things have changed that might account for this change of heart, I don't know, but it seems to me that small stones are building new foundations."

This is from Ghost Writer at Lime Tree Legends.

I wonder who else out there might have started with good intentions and tailed off. Or missed a day and given up.

As Ghost Writer says, it doesn't matter. As writers (as people) the important thing is to begin again.

And again.

One small stone, or even ten seconds of looking for one, is better than none.

Do share your own experiences of perseverance (how to or how not to!) in the comments.

Writing and spirituality

2011-07-13T14:05:00.001+01:00

“When you are present, the world is truly alive.” ~ Natalie Goldberg

When I was younger, I read Natalie Goldberg's classic, Writing Down the Bones. In it she says many sensible things about being a writer. She also talks about her practice as a Buddhist.

I was a proud atheist at the time. But the things she talked about (mindfulness, faith) seeped into me somewhere. Seeds were planted.

Fast-forward to the present day, and I'm married to a Buddhist priest - and I'm following a similar path myself. My practice as a Buddhist is important to me on many levels. But are there links between spirituality (however you define it) and writing small stones?

I think that spirituality is good at putting us in touch with something that is larger than our 'small selves'. Something that knows better than we do. You could see this as mother nature, with her seasons and her endless recycling, or you could see it as something more mystical. Either way, connecting with what's around us can help us to find a new kind of wisdom.

I also think that spirituality and a writing practice can both help to steady us. Life is a roller-coaster. Sometimes knowing that we have a daily meditation practice or writing practice gives us a place to return to, a structure, a reassuring constancy in the middle of impermanence.

Finally, spirituality and writing are both good at opening us up - softening us - so we can connect more mindfully with those around us (including the planet). It helps us learn about ourselves, and others. It helps us see more clearly (including the bits we'd rather not see). Ultimately, it helps us to love.

I'd love to hear what you think about the links between spirituality and writing - do share in the comments below.

I'll leave you with another quote from Natalie -

“Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.”

Paying attention to strangers

2011-07-11T15:00:00.019+01:00

(it's never too late to join the river....)

Outside our conservatory windows are a mass of petunias.

They are fuchsia pink, deep purple bleeding-at-the-edges, salmon pink, lily-white.

They change every day. I watch them extra-carefully, because I planted them. I watered them as they grew from teensy little things into great blooming bushes. They are 'mine'.

We are especially fond of things that we attach to our 'selves'. They are 'my' petunias, and so I have a good relationship with them. I take care of them. I appreciate them.

But what about the lemon-balm that was here when we arrived? What about the weeds blooming on the path round the back of the house?

Writing small stones encourages us to notice the things that aren't attached to our selves, and to pay them exactly the same kind of attention. To stop and wonder how strangers are, as well as our friends and family. To love them just as much.

Can you do this today when you look for small stones? Can you look beyond your self?

Really seeing the other leads to freedom

2011-07-08T15:00:00.001+01:00

A post from our archive by Kaspa:

This week my teacher Dharamvidya David Brazier has been in Israel leading some workshops on psychology. In one of them he talked about how really seeing the other can set you free.

What he describes is also the philosophy that underpins this whole project, and I owe a great debt to him, and others, for teaching me.

"...the focus is upon discerning the truth of the other and achieving spiritual maturity. One achieves liberation for oneself by releasing others from the attachment generated by one's own deluded and stereotypical perception of them. The self-construct is the mirror image of these false views of others. To see the truth of the other is to release them and thereby, incidentally, to release oneself from one's self-construct." Love and Its Disappointment blog

As we more clearly see the other, the other moves away from being what, on some level, we want it to be, and becomes more real. In this way we release the other and give it freedom to exist - and we release ourselves too. As we take away the prop to our 'small self' and grant it existence, we become liberated.

The truth shall set you free.
(John 8:32, The Bible)

small stones as a gratitude practice

2011-07-06T11:23:00.007+01:00

As part of our morning practice, Kaspa & I do a few minutes of something called 'Nai Quan'.

We sit quietly and ask ourselves three questions - over the past 24 hours, what have I received from others, what have I offered in return, and what trouble has my existence caused others?

This morning I decided to focus on the first question, and my immediate surroundings.

After feeling thankful for my zafu (the cushion I sit on), I turned my attention to the lamp we bought from IKEA last year. The photo above really doesn't do it justice.

It has a double layer of golden woven rattan, in an elegant tulip curve. It sits on top of a silver 'bud' and a simple stem, and the light makes warm patterns on the walls as it passes through the weaving.

After thinking about receiving the beauty of this lamp, I went on to think about who had made it. Who wove the shape? Where was the rattan grown and picked? The sun shone on it, and someone watered it. Where did the metal come from? How was it made? Where is the smelting factory? Who made that? Who works there?

And then, the light-bulb. What an astonishing invention. The electricity that comes through the wall into our house. Who laid the lines underground? Where is the electricity made?

I could go on. All this, so I can press a button and let golden light into our shrine room.

Today, see your small stone practice as a gratitude practice. Look around you. What have you received in the past 24 hours? What can you notice? What are you thankful for?

For when you get scared

2011-07-05T14:00:00.000+01:00

A post from the archive by Fiona:

Writing can be a thorny business.

I've been doing it for many years now. I have four completed novels behind me, a book of poetry, a book of small stones, and a book of questions.

The blank page still scares the bejesus out of me. I sit down to write my work-in-progress and think 'what am I doing thinking I can write? of all the deluded (mumble mumble)....' I have avoided writing poems for almost a year now.

Maybe your small stones will leap eagerly and willingly into your laps, but if you're like the rest of the human race you might also have occasional thoughts like this.

How can we continue when we're convinced the whole project is pointless and that everything we ever write is utter rubbish?

By taking a pen and writing a single word. And then another.

Thank your doubts kindly for their input, and continue anyway. Reassure your critic that you WILL allow them out, when you have written your small stone and you want to start polishing it, but not until then.

Writing can be a thorny business. But then so is life.

We are all in it together. The river of stones, and the river of life. We can encourage each other (do visit each other's blogs next month and say what you like). We can take comfort in the knowledge that every single writer ever has had terrible doubts about what they're doing. We can learn how to encourage ourselves, and get better at this as we go along. We can eat chocolate. We'll be JUST fine.

First day of our sesshin

2011-07-04T15:00:00.026+01:00

As you read this, we will be in the afternoon of our first day of sesshin in our Buddhist retreat centre in the middle of France. We might be sitting in front of this Buddha right now.

We might be sitting quietly in the bamboo grove, or walking slowly and silently through the beautiful countryside, or chanting or bowing or singing. Maybe we'll be drinking a cup of lemongrass tea, slowly and mindfully.

We won't be talking to each other. We won't be on our laptops or our mobile phones. (Wish us luck!)

This will give us the perfect opportunity to look out for small stones. We'll be catching them all in our notebooks and putting them online at the end of the week.

But you don't have to go on retreat to find small stones. The whole point of the practice is that it fits into all kinds of lives, no matter how busy they are. Who doesn't have five minutes to spare in a day? If you don't have five minutes, then just NOTICE your small stone instead - thirty seconds should do it.

Try not to get too caught up in whether your small stone is any good or not (although I'm sure most of you will, because you're human). Just notice. Just write them down.

While we're away we won't be sharing these articles anywhere - do help us out if you can by sharing the links with your friends and on Twitter and Facebook if you enjoy them. And do support each other in your small stone practice. Deep bow.

The river begins!

2011-07-01T14:45:00.000+01:00

(to find out about joining our July writing challenge click here)

One small stone.

This is how we begin today.

We notice one thing properly. We write it down.

It doesn't matter how long it is, or how clever it is, or whether you've spelt it right.

It matters that you pause for a moment. It matters that you really hear the whirr of your lap-top, or the squeaky wheel as the cyclists passes you. It matters that you smell those tomatoes-on-the-vine and notice their earthy sweetness. It matters that you take a minute to skim your fingertips over your smooth silk shirt.

We notice one thing properly. We write it down.

One day to go - river's eve!

2011-06-30T15:00:00.007+01:00

"I am astonished in my teaching to find how many poets are nearly blind to the physical world. They have ideas, memories, and feelings, but when they write their poems they often see them as similes. To break this habit, I have my students keep a journal in which they must write, very briefly, six things they have seen each day—not beautiful or remarkable things, just things. This seemingly simple task usually is hard for them...

...Their journals fill up with lovely things like, "the mirror with nothing reflected in it." This way of seeing is important, even vital to the poet, since it is crucial that a poet see when she or he is not looking—just as she must write when she is not writing. To write just because the poet wants to write is natural, but to learn to see is a blessing."

~From The Art of Finding by Linda Gregg

Join the river of stones to practice this way of seeing. If you are a writer, it will help your writing. If you are not a writer, you soon will be, but, either way, this kind of seeing gets you closer to the world. I've used a longish quote from Gregg's article because she describes how the type of exercise we're proposing can help make us better writers and poets. We found Gregg's article during the January challenge I think, and it's confirming to see other writers encouraging people along the sames lines as us. We're not saying anything new though, really, just encouraging lots of people to join us.

renegade reds dot
a leaf brown landscape—
a pack of newports shouts
viridian blue

Robin Turner

I hope all of your journals fill up with lovely things like "the mirror with nothing reflected in it", and that you share your small stones with us on your blogs. Find out how to get involved here.

We begin tomorrow!

P.S. Remember that Fiona and I will be on a silent retreat next week. We'll be keeping our small stones in our paper journals and writing them up online at the weekend, when we'll also enjoy diving in and reading all of your lovely contributions.

P.P.S Thanks to Leo Renyolds for the countdown photos this week.

Two days to go - almost there!

2011-06-29T15:00:00.001+01:00

"Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable", and "Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say.” Brenda Ueland

You should join us in July because you are incomparable, talented, and original. Each of you is unique - there are beautiful observations about the world that only you can make.

An empty muffin case lies flat and folded in the road like a fan, abandoned mid-dance.
Peggy Riley

Each of us is falling in love with the world in our own way, the things you notice will be different to the things your neighbour notices - and both will come from a wonderful place. Human beings are born to be creative, and this creativity comes out of the unique relationship each of us has with the world. Notice one thing each day, write it down and share your very special creativity with us.

Let us know you're joining (click here). Get the badges, and tell your friends to join us too!

Happy writing!

P.S If you haven't read Brenda Ueland's books about writing, I can highly recommend them!

Three days to go

2011-06-28T15:00:00.009+01:00

"...even on a material level, the other is a great mystery. When we struggle to relate to it, we fall back into personalised approximations. Keeping our sense of wonder and our willingness to encounter the other requires a special kind of reaching out." Caroline Brazier

Why you should join the river: Because having a notebook, or a blog, and a vow to write one small stone in it each day can help you keep a sense of wonder about the world. Deciding to take part in the July challenge, to notice something each day and write about it, sets in motion that willingness to reach out - that willingness to really look and listen to the world - and to stand in awe.

Some days our sense of wonder will be clouded, and that's okay and normal. The commitment to write something everyday can keep us going (and writing) through those cloudy days until the sun comes out again.

On the black river,
a pair of great-crested grebe nod
towards the ceremonies of spring.

Kate Noakes

Let us know if you want to join us. Put our beautiful badges on your blog, and share the joy on twitter and facebook (use the buttons at the bottom of this post).

Happy writing, see you in the river of stones!

The joy of July - four days to go!

2011-06-27T15:00:00.008+01:00

I really look forward to getting back into focusing on the things around me. Too often we just get so caught up in the stress and chaos of our daily lives that we put off being observant. I really need the discipline of learning how to slow down and take a good look around me. The River of Stones was a wonderful exercise for me in January and hopefully I won't stop after July. ~ Mary-Jane, Cracked Sugar Bowl

Why everyone is joining the river: Like Mary-Jane, in January hundreds of people made a commitment to write a small stone every day. In July we'd like you to join us as we do the same again. To reach beyond yourself and notice one small thing each day, and to write it down.

We believe that it's better to be connected to the world, than not to be. We believe that it's better to notice the unnoticed, the weeds in the cracks in the pavement and the aphid on the bud of the rose, than to let them slip by. And we believe that writing can help us pay attention to, and become intimate with, the world.

•thirty-one•

It is like a bonus, the thirty-first day. Suddenly, no more fog. Blinding sun. Raging blue, and lacy wisps of cloud to prove the Earth hasn’t stopped in its tracks. Oh, wow. We are never still.

Lis Harvey

You can keep small stones in your paper notebooks and journals, or like hundreds of people did in January you could make a blog for them. Click here to find out how to let us know you're taking part, and click here to dive in the river and see the small stones people have already started writing.

River of Stones book on Amazon

2011-06-26T15:39:00.003+01:00

That's a photo of the Amazon river to celebrate that the book pay attention: a river of stones, that we created after the January challenge, is finally available on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com.

I can only imagine that the reason it took so long is because a real, living, human being needed to read and approve the book before it appeared on their sites, rather than the completely automated process of Lulu. But it's here! We've had some lovely feedback from people who bought the book earlier in the year, so if you've been waiting now's your chance!

pay attention: a river of stones is a collection of lots of your lovely small stones, and some longer prose pieces about the process of writing them. It was winter in the northern hemisphere during the first challenge and there are lots of beautiful stones about that season (and some sunny ones, from our friends in the south) as well as some more esoteric small stones.

the red cherry
at the bottom of the glass
bounces
to the beat
from the dance floor

Mary-Jane Grandinetti

The July challenge, to notice one thing and write it down, every day, begins on Friday. Are you ready? Click here to find out how to take part. I'm looking forward to reading all of your July small stones!

Wedding pics

2011-06-25T14:50:00.001+01:00

Fiona writes:
So, the knot is well and truly tied!

We had a wonderful time on honeymoon and we're very much enjoying being mister and missus.

If you'd like to have a sneaky peek at a few of our Buddhist wedding photos, here they are.

Many of you wrote us small stones on the day, and we're looking forward to making these into a website later in the summer.

We were overwhelmed by everyone's support and good wishes on the day - our friends and family, and our friends across the world. A heart-felt thank you and deep bow to all of you.

So, what's next? There will be no more talk of weddings, because.....

The river is nearly upon us, of course! We begin this Friday, the 1st of July. Have you got your badge yet? Have you invited your friends to join you? I can't wait....

Happy weekend, all!

Today is our wedding day...

2011-06-18T10:34:00.001+01:00

Today is the day.

As you read this blog, we'll be putting our posh clothes on, or greeting all our friends and family with a hug. We might be in the middle of our Buddhist ceremony (with candles and water and chanting and a specially-designed wedding scroll to sign), or eating a wide selection of puddings (you can tell it's Fiona writing this post) or dancing to the Irish fiddle, or having post-wedding-drinks at our hotel with our lovely friends.

The photo is of Kaspa in India - before we got together, when he was still a Buddhist monk (that's another story), when we were courting by email. We didn't admit that it was courting at the time, but courting it was. I am very very lucky to have found him. I'm grateful for every moment we have together.

We'll put up some pictures up when we get back from our honeymoon, but in the meantime we're hoping you might be noticing something and writing a small stone and sending it to us here.

I hope you have a wonderful day. Let some of our happiness shine out from the Malvern Hills and warm you, wherever you are. And we'll send you some virtual pudding, too.

Thank you for reading, lovely readers.

What this strawberry whispered in my ear

2011-06-15T13:54:00.002+01:00

Fiona writes:

Since I got home a couple of hours ago, I've been faffing about.

You may have heard on the grapevine (!) that I'm getting married on Saturday. Today's task is to write some blogs for the river while we're away on honeymoon and in France. Instead I've been faffing.

And then I ate a bowl of strawberries. And this one whispered in my ear...

Look at me... it whispered. Look how shiny and red I am. Look at how the red deepens at the top, near the place I was attached to my plant. Look at my tiny seeds.

Smell my sweet strawberry scent. Imagine the field I was plucked from. Imagine the journey I've been on, to end up in your white bowl. And now.... eat me! Taste me! Pay attention!

The strawberry reminded me that it doesn't matter if I'm getting married on Saturday or in two years time. What I've got is today - now - with the rain coming down and jobs to get on with and this exquisite bowl of strawberries.

Writing small stones helps us to hear what the strawberry has to say. Trust me, it has a very quiet voice. But once you start listening to the objects around you, they will remind you of what's important. They will bring you back into the world. They will calm your jitters, pre-wedding or otherwise. They will show you how you can love them.

If you want to experiment with a daily small stone practice, join our river in July. Or just choose an object from around you right now, and hear what it has to say. Let us know in the comments!

Why join the river in July? Joy.

2011-06-10T12:00:00.001+01:00

So, what's this river small stones thing? And what does that bird have to do with anything?

Just a bird?

A goldfinch. Notice his golden stripe. The red blush across his crown. His pink scaly feet, gripping the dandelion-head. Observe the fluffy seeds, ready to lift off into the breeze. The tatty yellow petals.

Now imagine paying this much attention to a 3D goldfinch - listening to him singing, touching the soft seeds, a breeze brushing your cheek and carrying the scent of roses...

This is what the river of stones is all about. It will give you the opportunity to notice the world properly, one glorious day at a time, all July long.

To take part, all you have to do is notice one thing every day and write it down. Ta-da - a small stone.

You don't have to be a writer. You don't have to show anyone your small stones (although there are plenty of places where you can share them.) You just have to pause. Look. Listen. Smell. Touch. Hear. Feel. Snuggle up closer to the world. And then write down what you've observed in your notebook.

Give yourself five minutes a day in July, and you will receive clear-seeing, insight, connection, compassion, richness and joy. You will receive the world.

We do hope you'll join us. Get our badge. Tell your friends. We'll see you in the river!

Without gratitude, nothing is enough

2011-06-08T09:50:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I was grumpy.

Maybe it was wedding nerves. Maybe it was a build up of those little day-to-day annoyances. Whatever it was, I couldn't shake it. People were nice to me, and made me soup, and made me cups of tea, but the grumpiness stayed.

One thing helped. From within my black cloud, I looked at the world. And the skies were blue. The clouds were white and fluffy. And I felt grateful for this, even from the middle of my grump.

It felt OK to be grumpy. We are all human, and we all feel grumpy, sad, and confused from time to time.

But we can try to remember to pay attention. And, if we're lucky, the blue sky will infect us with its cheerfulness and we'll hear the birds singing again. Paying attention helps us to practice gratitude.

During July, we would like to offer you the opportunity to pay better attention to the world, one day at a time. To notice something every day, and write it down. Give yourself a gift this July. Join us.

If you have ten minutes to spare today, do watch this video which inspired this post - Julio Olalla talking about gratitude. It's very moving and very true.

"Without gratitude, nothing is enough."

PS Have you got your badge yet? Have you added your blog to our blogroll? Have you let your friends know (on Facebook and Twitter) that you're taking part, and asked if they'd like to join you? Did you know we're doing mindful writing prompts on Tuesdays now?

Blogsplash: Wedding Small Stones

2011-06-01T08:48:00.001+01:00

Blogs all over the blogosphere are reposting this post to help us celebrate our wedding by collecting as many small stones as possible. If you'd like to help us celebrate please copy this post to your own blog! (Instructions here)

Thanks to everyone that has taken part already!

Fiona and Kaspa have taken over my blog today, because they need our help...

They are both on a mission to help the world connect with the worldthrough writing. They are also getting married on Saturday the 18th ofJune.

For their fantasy wedding present, they are asking people across theworld to write them a ‘small stone’ and post it on their blogs or onFacebook or Twitter.

A small stone is a short piece of observational writing – simply payattention to something properly and then write it down. Find out moreabout small stones here.

If you’re willing to help, we’d love you to do things:

1) Re-post this blog on your own blog any time before June the 18th andgive your readers a chance to hear about what we’re doing. You cansimply copy and paste the text, or you can find the htmlhere.

2) Write us a small stone on our wedding day whilst we’re saying ourvows and eating cake, post it on your blog, and sendit to us.

You can find out more about our project at our website, Wedding SmallStones, and you can also read our blog at A River of Stones.

We also have a July challenge coming soon, when we’ll be challengingyou to notice one thing every day during July and write it down.

Thank you for listening, and we hope we’ll be returning from ourhoneymoon to an inbox crammed with small stones, including yours.

Kaspa & Fiona

Can you help us on Wednesday?

2011-05-29T19:31:00.002+01:00

In three days time, on Wednesday the 1st of June, we're having a BLOGSPLASH.

A blogsplash is where lots & lots of bloggers publish the same post on the same day.

Our blogsplash will be an invitation to write us a small stone on our wedding day, the 18th of June.

If you're willing to join us in our splash, the post and full instructions are here.

You could also help by sharing this link http://www.fionarobyn.com/wedding/blogsplash.html on Facebook and on Twitter before Wednesday.

We'd like to celebrate our wedding in style, with as many small stones as possible. You can help us make it happen.

Thank you : )

(PS less than 3 weeks to go! eek/yay!)

The colour of the leaves - the sound of the wind

2011-05-27T15:42:00.001+01:00

"When I sit down in the bamboo and look around me, I am immediately struck by how much I did not include in my writing this morning... Realising the gaps in my recall makes me look more carefully. I look to the bamboo stems, stunning in their clarity, and as I do so, I feel shocked by confronting the chasms in my memory."
~Caroline Brazier writing in Acorns Among the Grass

In her new book Acorns Among the Grass: Adventures in Eco-Therapy, Caroline Brazier has a section about using writing in order to connect with the world. Her book rests upon the premise that we have much to learn from the Earth, and that really being in connection with the Earth can be a healing experience. Our small stone writing rests upon a similar philosophy.

Writing can be a useful way to sharpen the mind and connect with the world, but it can also dull our perception, for we all too easily get caught in words and the familiar patterns of our thinking, preventing ourselves from seeing the real things around us...
...We need to keep asking ourselves, "Is what I have written true?" and, "Can I put this more succinctly, more accurately, in more detail?"
Acorns Among the Grass

We can ask ourselves these questions when writing small stones too: Have I fallen back into old ways of thinking? Am I writing a cliché? Can I put this more accurately?

Write down what you see and hear and then look and listen again, at the world if you can, or in your memory. Have you seen or heard what was really there?

It's impossible to remove the subjective completely of course, but these questions, and writing small stones, are designed to bring us into contact with what is real.

Even the act of intending to write can make us look more closely - when we go into the world we go with these questions in mind. What are we really looking at?

Go into the world, touch what is real and write about it.

Wedding small stones!

A reminder - Fiona and I are getting married on the 18th June, and would like you to help us celebrate by writing a small stone for us that day. You can also help by letting other people know about the wedding small stones by taking part in our blogsplash on the 1st of June. Click here to help us celebrate: Wedding small stones & blogsplash

2011-05-17T19:26:00.000+01:00

So – Kaspa & I are getting married on the 18^th of June. In less than four weeks. Eek!

I’m getting nervous about whether we’ve got everything ready for the day, and whether everyone will have a lovely time. But I can’t WAIT to be a married woman.

We're having a Buddhist ceremony (which apparently involves having water sprinkled on us) and I'm also looking forward to my favourite puddings - banoffee pie, chocolate cheesecake and summer fruits and cream. A little of each, I think ; )

As a way of making our day even more special, we’re inviting people all over the world to give us a special gift on the day by writing a small stone. And we need your help, river-of-stoners...

We’re hoping that people will pay attention to something on the 18^th of June and send something through to us, whether or not they’ve written a small stone before. We’ll put all these small stones on a website (when we get back from our honeymoon!) and they’ll be a wonderful record of our day.

We'd love you to take part, and we'd also love you to join our Blogsplash and post instructions on your blog on the 1st of June so that other people can hear about the project and get involved themselves. You can find out how to do this (and how to send us a small stone yourself) at Wedding Small Stones. We do hope you can help us.

In other news, we're also excited to let you know about our new self-study e-course, ‘The Art of Paying Attention’. The first of the four week-long modules (which also works well as a self-contained course) is ‘How to Pay Attention to the World’, and we’re offering this completely free of charge.

The course includes a Workbook (including essays, stories and exercises), daily emails, four short videos of Kaspa & I, and exclusive access to a private group on the Writing Our Way Home forum where you can share your learning with fellow participants.

If you’d like to find out more, click here. And here's me & Kaspa talking about the course in a bluebell wood...

So – wish us luck : )

A special announcement for our wedding

2011-04-28T17:08:00.000+01:00

We’re getting married on Saturday the 18th of June, (yay!) and we’d love you to give us a special wedding gift by writing us a small stone on our wedding day.

Kaspa has made us a brand new site at Wedding Small Stones, which has all the instructions you'll need if you're able to take part. We hope you do : ) In brief:

1) Help us spread the word by posting information about the project on your blog on Monday the 1st of June – our ‘Small Stone Blogsplash’. This is to give people a chance to hear about our project before our wedding day.

2) On the 18th of June, whilst we’re putting on our nice clothes and saying our vows and eating cake, pay attention to one thing around you, write it down, and send us your small stone here.

We hope to come back from our honeymoon to an inbox full of your small stones. It would be the perfect wedding gift. We’ll put them all up on the wedding site – with your name and blog if you’d like us to include them.

We’d just love it if the whole world paid proper attention to one thing on our wedding day. Make us happy and share our day with us!

Making ripples

2011-04-26T15:54:00.004+01:00

(Pond Life by Fujoshi)

When you throw stones into a pond the ripples go all the way to the edge. If you put a drop of ink into a clear tank of water and wait, the clear water will colour. We're hoping 1000 of you will throw small stones into our River during July. In the meantime ripples from the January challenge are still travelling across the web.

On Friday Fiona and I recorded a YouTube video of the two of us talking about The River of Stones. Here it is:

On 22nd April, Kirsten Cliff reposted our video at Swimming In Lines Of Haiku, as an Easter gift to her readers.

On 24nd April, Amber wrote about small stones on her blog Soul living resources:

Small stone moments can occur at any time. They have a brightness and vividness that makes them stand out from ordinary moments. I have a sense that the more I pay attention to life and the world around me, the more I will notice small stone moments occuring.

Today, Margo Roby has a great interview with us on her weblog WordGathering:

How do you see, or define small stones?
Fiona: The most important thing about a small stone isn’t how it looks or sounds but how it you find it. The idea is to pay more attention – whether you’re in your living room or climbing a mountain – and notice things that you wouldn’t otherwise notice. Notice one thing properly, and write it down. That’s it.

Zen and the Art of Writing

2011-04-21T10:43:00.001+01:00

"Just write something." Much easier to say, than to do. When I run drama workshops I know that the most paraylising instruction I can give to someone is "Just go and perform something". A blank page, or canvas, or an empty stage, can freeze our creativity.

If we have this experience more than once, we can start to believe that we simply don't have any creative powers, or that any powers we did have dried up.

In the theatre it's much more empowering for an actor when I give them a more specific instruction. When their creativity is given limits, it is much more able to produce work. "Perform something, but don't move outside of this small square." Or, "Perform something using these few words." Then magic can happen.

In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig tells a story about one his writing students. She doesn't believe she can write; faced with a blank page she is frozen. Pirsig instructs her to go into the main street, and to look at the bank there. He tells he to look at a specific brick in the bank's wall, he tells her how many rows in this brick is, and instructs her to write about this brick.

She brings pages of writing into the next class. She had begun writing about this one brick, and it had led her to explore the history of brick-making in the town, and how the demise of the industry had affected the whole society. Starting from this one brick, she had become fired up (excuse the pun) and created something interesting and wonderful.

Someone else starting from the same brick would have written something completely different. Any object, or writing prompt, is like a gateway into our own personal imagination. Wherever we start from, something that is important to us will appear on the page.

This is why the various writing prompts here are so good, they give us a seed and unlock the door to our creative powers. With the same prompt each of us produces something different.

There are prompts all around us in the world as well; the shout of the scrap-man, "Any old iron", opens one world, the Sylvia Edwards print of Noah's ark is a gateway into another, and I have talked before about just how much there is through the office window.

Pick one thing, and start writing.

Praising Spring

2011-04-18T09:50:00.000+01:00

This is one of Lynda Bruce's beautiful paintings - it's called 'Song for Spring'. Lynda has just joined our community (join us!) and we're hoping to speak with her at some point for our new series of interviews with creative types. The first one is with illustrator Jackie Morris, and if you haven't seen her paintings of leopards & bears you should go see now.

I don't feel very springlike this morning - I woke up feeling full of mud and I'm still ankle-deep. A spring cold is probably brewing in me.

Even more reason to pay attention to everything I can.

I've been enjoying this poem by Linda Gregg over the weekend. Two Lindas/Lyndas, and two homages to spring.

Don't forget to pay attention to the passing of the seasons, to the weather, to the cat curled up on the chair. To every degree of flourishing. Write it down.

Praising Spring

The day is taken by each thing and grows complete.

I go out and come in and go out again,

confused by a beauty that knows nothing of delay,

rushing like fire. All things move faster

than time and make a stillness thereby. My mind

leans back and smiles, having nothing to say.

Even at night I go out with a light and look

at the growing. I kneel and look at one thing

at a time. A white spider on a peony bud.

I have nothing to give, and make a poor servant,

but I can praise the spring. Praise this wildness

that does not heed the hour. The doe that does not

stop at dark but continues to grow all night long.

The beauty in every degree of flourishing. Violets

lift to the rain and the brook gets louder than ever.

The old German farmer is asleep and the flowers go on

opening. There are stars. Mint grows high. Leaves

bend in the sunlight as the rain continues to fall.

- Linda Gregg

Our wedding, and wanting 1000 blogs (and a winner)

2011-04-11T09:22:00.001+01:00

We're getting married on the 18th of June : )

If you're going to join the river, we'd like you to keep the 17th of June free for a special event which we'll tell you more about nearer the time. It will be the perfect wedding present for us...

It's going to be a part of our master plan to get (at least) 1000 bloggers involved in the river of stones challenge this July. We have 80 already - I've just added a nifty little widget on the right hand side to show us our progress.

Also, I just picked a name out of the hat to win a lovely hardback of the 'pay attention' book - congratulations to Milagros! Everyone else who entered will have to add it to their Christmas lists...

It was a gorgeous sunny weekend here. I hope you have lovely weeks!

Swinging below a star

2011-04-05T09:08:00.001+01:00

Look for a lovely thing. This is Lolly's new blog for her small stones... a lovely thing in itself. A few people are creating separate blogs for their small stones, ready for our July challenge or to start now if they can't wait. You can see all the small-stone-only blogs at The River, and the other participants in the blogroll here on the right.

Of course, small stones are ugly and annoying and heartbreaking as well as gorgeous and sparkly and marvellous, but I'm sure some of you will write some others to balance Lolly's out.

There have been a few little changes over at the Writing Our Way Home forum, and now our blogs are at the top. If you scroll down far enough, you might even find a hiding Issa poem.... do come and say hi, and think about starting a group if you have an idea of a writing project. The April Writing as Spiritual Practice e-course is now underway - so there's an early bird discount of £15/$20 to join the May one if you sign up before the 17th of April.

And to borrow Lolly's Sara Teasdale quote:

"Stars over snow, And in the west a planet. Swinging below a star-- Look for a lovely thing and you will find it, It is not far-- It never will be far."

--Sara Teasdale

20% Sale on Lulu.com and a lovely post from Lisa

2011-04-01T11:10:00.001+01:00

Small stones are everywhere; in spring meadows and cultivated fields and in the brambles where hedge-sparrows nest, in the cracks between the pavement and in the sky. You just have to open your senses.

Lulu.com in the United Sates and the UK (maybe elsewhere, check their website) are having a 20% sale this weekend. Here are the links to pay attention: a river of stones again, the beautiful book we created in response to all the wonderful writing we saw during the January river: the paperback, the hardback gift edition, and the ebook (pdf).

Lisa, one of the contributers, has written this lovely post on her blog Diary of a Sqaure Toothed Girl about receiving her copy. She finishes her post by saying:

Paying attention is, sometimes, just plain hard.
But I'll tell you, stone by stone, there is is joy to be found simply in trying.

Lisa is right, sometimes it is hard. But there is a great joy in it. Visit The River, the space for our July challenge, and see what small stones people are noticing and writing already. Let us know if you have a small stone blog you'd like adding.

A bit rainy and all sorts of other things

2011-03-31T08:37:00.000+01:00

Here's Rachel, holding her lovely book. And here's how she felt about receiving it.

Jennifer is starting a month's worth of poetry prompts today, based on Personal Mythology. You can read her first post here and there's an accompanying group at WOWH here.

If anyone else would like to use WOWH to set up a group of their own for your own project, do feel free - we have plenty of space there, and (like magic) it'll increase with the number of people who arrive. Email me if you've got any questions.

What else? More than 60 people are signed up for the July challenge (I know, it's only March still...). My April Writing as Spiritual Practice e-course starts on Monday, and another one is running in May. I wrote a free essay about slugs. Oh, and all sorts of other things.

It's a bit rainy in Malvern today. Let's hope the sun remembers where we are at the weekend.

And the winner is...(and two more free books)

2011-03-29T12:17:00.000+01:00

And the winner of the prize draw, receiving a copy of Alexander Master's book Stuart: A Life Backwards is Ana Gonçalves.

Congratulations Ana!

After pulling Ana's name out of my (virtual) hat, I clicked on her profile and it took me to her lovely small-stone/photo blog expressive world. It's really well designed and definitely worth a look

In other book give-away news Margo Roby who blogs at Wordgathering is giving away a copy of No Bones to Carry, an award winning collection by internationally published poet, James Penha and a copy of pay attention: a river of stones.

Margo's blog is really very good, with or without free books, she writes poetry prompts and advice on writing poems. Click on over to this post to be entered into her draw.

Fiona is giving away one copy of the hardback version of pay attention: a river of stones. She's also written a new article today which "looks at how often we ignore the things we shouldn't, what happens when we do, and how you can get better at paying attention to them instead. You might want to read it if you've ever ignored anything ever."

Head over to this post to read more and find out how to enter: Fatty, slugs and win a free hardback

Free e-book and other lovely stuff

2011-03-26T13:10:00.000Z

Johannes S. H. Bjerg has created a beautiful e-book from his January small stones - do go and have a look.

And Chris Galvin (whom, I note approvingly, enjoys good dark chocolate) has written a beautiful piece about the river here - well worth tweeting and sharing on your Facebook pages as a way of encouraging your friends to get involved.

The River (which contains blogs that only publish small stones) has more than forty drops already, and the blog here on the right (with anyone taking part) has more than fifty. More than a trickle. You can start writing small stones whenever you like - email me your blog address (and whether you're posting only small stones or not) and I'll add you to one or both of them straight away.

Oh, and don't forget to leave a comment on the blog below before the end of Sunday if you'd like to be in for a chance of winning 'Stuart: A Life Backwards'.

Have wonderful weekends. We watched Inception last night - I'm still trying to work it out!

Free book prize-draw, and how you can help us

2011-03-22T21:33:00.002Z

As part of World Book Night (which, although grandly titled, was, this year, just in the UK) Fiona volunteered to give away 48 copies of one of her favorite books. In total, volunteers gave away one million books across the UK to encourage people to read something new, or in many cases just to read.

We've got one copy of Alexander Masters' Stuart: A Life Backwards left, and we'd like to give it to one of you.

Stuart is the real life hero of this story, a homeless person that Masters meets and decides to tell the story of. Stuart advises Alex to tell the story backwards, and this book is the result, although it's as much about their relationship as about Stuart's life. It's moving, and funny and sometimes heartbreaking. I read it a couple of years ago when a friend recommended it and couldn't put it down.

If you'd like to be entered into the draw to receive our last copy of this World Book Night edition of this fantastic true story, please leave a comment below (we're happy to ship it to wherever you live). I'll pull a name out of the hat a week today.

In other news, we've added a page called How you can help us - any of these things would be wonderful, but we are also very happy for you to be here and benefit without ever hearing from you. Keep writing the small stones!

The first is to share the word about our work. Tell your friends about writing small stones, or Fiona's free e-book, or our free community.

The second is to buy our book, 'pay attention: a river of stones', or check out ouron-line e-courses or Fiona's other books.

The third is to put a few coins in our tip jar by using the Paypal button below. Every little counts.

Win a free copy of the book and an interview

2011-03-21T17:04:00.001Z

Here's another copy of 'pay attention: a river of stones' in the wild - this time modelled beautifully by Laurie of Conversations With A Cardinal. We don't get cardinals over here... I'm jealous.

Sara has posted an interview with me at her blog, here we were, and is generously giving away a free copy of the book. To be in with a chance, leave a comment on her post.

Here's a lovely review of the book by Deborah Rickard, and here's another by James at Coyote Mercury. Kaspa & I were drooling over the hardback again today. There's nothing like a well-made hardback...

Nearly 40 people are in The River now, and to keep things simple here are the instructions again if you'd like to be in The River and/or on the blogroll on this blog. And those badges are starting to appear across the blogosphere!

Happy Monday : )

Email fiona@fionarobyn.com and tell me your blog address and whether you're posting just small stones (in which case you'll be added to The River and the blogroll here) or other things too (in which case you'll just be added to the blogroll here).

A new space for The River, and get your badge for July

2011-03-19T21:08:00.005Z

Our next write-a-small-stone-a-day challenge will be taking place in July. In January, over 350 bloggers across the world took part. This time, we'd like to encourage even more people to discover the joys of paying attention to one thing every day and writing it down.

Like last time, we'll be very happy if you want to write your small stones in your notebook and nobody ever sees them, or if you want to share them on your blog, on Twitter, on Facebook, with your neighbours etc. One of the things a lot of people enjoyed in January was reading other people's small stones, supporting each other and making new friends.

We have two different blogrolls.

One is a brand new space called The River which is for blogs that only contain small stones (no need to use the 'aros' tag this time.) If you post your small stones on your usual blog and you want to join The River, you could always create another blog and upload your small stones to it once a week or so. (If you have a Wordpress feed which will filter your small stones from your usual blog, feel free to send us this too.)

The other will appear here, and is for anyone who's planning on taking part in the July challenge, regardless of what else you might post in your blog.

Both blogrolls are open for business as soon as you're writing small stones. If you'd like to join them:

Email fiona@fionarobyn.com and tell me your blog address and whether you're posting just small stones (in which case you'll be added to The River and the blogroll here) or other things too (in which case you'll just be added to the blogroll here).

I'm trying to keep things very clear because we're determined to spend less time doing admin than we did in January. And we'll hopefully have more blogs to add! If you need more detail, let me know and I'll make these instructions even clearer. Thank you!

If you want to keep up with the news, you can join the mailing list here - we won't be collecting any other details about participants than their web address this time. There's also a group for July small-stoners on the Writing Our Way Home forum.

And, as you can see from the previous post, our new badges are ready. Get them while they're hot and let's start spreading the word...

PS In January, we created a book (the beautiful pay attention: a river of stones) from our favorite stones. In July, the whole project will be online.

Roll on July!

July '11 Badges for your blogs

2011-03-19T20:51:00.000Z

To add one of these badges to your blog/webpage here's the html you'll need. Different blog platforms have different ways of adding badges. If you're not sure see the help pages for the blog platform you use.

This one for the black border:

This one for the white border

Share the good stuff around

2011-03-16T21:44:00.000Z

Here is Robin, holding her copy of "pay attention: a river of stones". She looks almost as happy as we felt when we received our first paperback. Do send us your photos - I love to think of the book travelling around the world without us.

And I love the idea of small stones travelling too - tell your best friend, tell your sometimes-miserable colleague at work, tell them about my free e-book, tell them about the river, review the book on your blog, come and visit us at our free friendly forum. With frogs. (no frogs really. I just got carried away).

If you found anything else when you were finding stones, keep looking. And share it.

Instructions for living a life

2011-03-11T21:01:00.000Z

"Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." ~ Mary Oliver

I found this quote at Robin's very lovely small stone blog leaf, stone, feather, sky. I have blog envy.

Oliver does praise SO well. She reminds us in her poetry over and over that we just need to look more closely if we want to fall in love with the world. Look at this pansy - the colours, the design - we have two pots of them outside our front door, and I don't look at them often enough.

With our small stones, we are doing exactly as Oliver suggests.

Thank you to Cait O'Connor for interviewing Kaspa about the river project at her blog. If anyone else would like to talk to us, do let us know.

In a couple of not-strictly-river-related notes, I have an article about not-being-perfect up at Tiny Buddha today, and if you'd like to get the early bird discount for my April Writing as Spiritual Practice e-course and join our current seven lovely participants, just send me an email before the end of Sunday.

Kaspa & I were talking earlier about the July write-a-small-stone-a-day challenge, and getting all excited. I wonder how we can broaden our river from 350 participants to ten times that? If anyone has any ideas, it'd be lovely if you wanted to share them. I've just started a group for that purpose (and any other purpose we can think of) here on the WOWH forum.

I'm off on my adventures now - see you when I get back!

...tell what it is plainly

2011-03-07T17:52:00.001Z

The greatest things a human soul ever does is to see something and tell what it is plainly.
John Ruskin 1856

I copied this into my journal in February 2009, whilst visiting Sheffield. I'd spent a week in silent retreat in a cottage in the peak district. That February we had heavy snow, and as I boarded the train I didn't know if I'd be able to make it to the cottage.

Sundari, who owned the cottage, and I took as bus as far as it would go and then walked for about a mile. It was already very dark. She said goodbye at the door, and I got the wood burner going.

This was before I'd met Fiona, and I hadn't heard of a small stone. Each day I'd go out into the winter and walk for about three hours. I carried my journal with me, and my camera, and noticed how the light caught the side of the stone buildings, the sound snow made when it hit the ground, sloughing of a roof, and the contrast between the natural world and the iron and steel of working farms.

On my way home from the retreat I visited the Millennium Gallery and their exhibition about Ruskin. I don't ally myself with him completely, I appreciate expressionism much more than he ever did, but there is something about his philosophy I find striking.

What Ruskin championed was artists going out in to nature (rather than re-creating a scene in their studio, and then painting it) and finding the truth of what is really there. The image on the left is his study of Gneiss Rock.

Go out in to the world, and find the truth of the rocks, of the clouds the rain and the sun, and tell it plainly.

Not a grey hair in sight...

2011-03-06T09:36:00.000Z

A message for our book contributors

2011-03-05T19:50:00.000Z

When Kaspa & I started the river of stones project, we had no idea where it would lead. Over time, as we read the wonderful observational writing springing up all over the internet, we decided it would be a good idea to make a book to showcase your wonderful pieces and to help spread the word about using small stones to engage with the world.

Since launching the book, we've had feedback from a few people who've been unhappy that we didn't offer them a free copy.

We've thought hard about this feedback. This project is important to us, and we've put our hearts into the blog, the river, the community, and the book.

As a result, we would like to offer all of our contributors a free PDF of the book - just email me or Kaspa and we'll send you one through.

If you're a contributor and you've already paid for a PDF and you'd like to be reimbursed, do email us and let us know. Lulu take half of the money you pay for each PDF, and as there's no way of getting this back, if you do want a refund we'll personally refund you the full amount.

Alternatively, you can know that the money that we receive from your PDF (and any hard copies you decide to buy) will go towards supporting us in our daily life and enabling us to continue doing what we're doing.

I'd also like to thank everybody who's given us positive feedback. We've had some really lovely emails and messages about the book and throughout the whole project.

Thank you for reading this, and for everything else. We do appreciate working with you.

Fiona & Kaspa

Bob Hale and Laurie Kolp interview us & 20% off book orders in the UK and US

2011-03-05T15:38:00.003Z

20% off all books at Lulu

Great News - Lulu.com have just sent us an email. We've got a discount code for you all to get 20% off all book orders in the UK and US. The code works once per person, and expires on Monday.

Here's the text from Lulu:

This is the UK code:

Enter coupon code GIANTUK305 at checkout and receive 20% off your book order. The maximum savings for this offer is £100. Sorry, but this offer is only valid in Pounds and cannot be applied to previous orders. You can only use this code once per account, and unfortunately you can't use this coupon in combination with other coupon codes. This great offer expires on 7 March, 2011 at 11:59 PM, so don't miss out! While very unlikely, we do reserve the right to change or revoke this offer at anytime, and of course we cannot offer this coupon where it is against the law to do so.

The code for the US is: GIANT305. Terms and conditions apply.

Here are the links to the different formats: the paperback, the hardback gift edition, and the ebook (pdf).

We've been showing our copy off to our friends today, we're both really pleased with how it looks and feels. Reading it again reminds me how many pieces of wonderful writing there are, and how rich and varied all our worlds are. Keep writing.

Interview with Bob Hale

small stoner Bob Hale keeps a blog called The Hitting The Road Blues. Fiona and I answered his questions about the river of stones project and, the book, and it's online now:

Where did the idea originally come from?
Fiona: I don’t know really – it was one of those ideas that just appeared from the blue. I thought it’d be nice to encourage more people to write small stones, and people like a challenge, so one-a-day during January felt like the right thing!

Read the whole thing: A River of Stones on The Hitting The Road Blues.

And here's another lovely piece just up, on Laurie's Conversations with with a Cardinal.

If you want to interview us for you blog do let us know, we're happy to answer questions. Email me (Kaspalita) or Fiona.

On creating a book...

2011-03-04T12:30:00.001Z

It’s here, it has hundreds of contributing authors, and it’s beautiful – and I don’t just mean the cover, because I have my download copy already and the content is stunning.
~Martha Williams

About half way through the January river of stones project, when we had seen what lovely things people were writing, Fiona and I had the idea of creating a collection, in book form, of small stones at the end of the project.

People sent their favorite small stones to us during February, and about once a week or so we'd print a sheaf of them out, head to a coffee shop and read through them all. We read over three thousand small stones (plus many more online, on blogs and twitter, just to see what people were writing). By the end of February, our submission deadline, we had a pretty good idea of what was going in the book. We'd written a few prose pieces ourselves, Fiona wrote an appendix about collecting and writing small stones, and I had created a cover based on a illustration by beast from east draw.

Curating a gallery of small stones

We then had the task of ordering everyone's small stones. We talked about ordering them alphabetically by name, or keeping them in the order in which they had arrived in our inbox, but in the end we wanted to create something more considered. Someone had called us 'curators' of the project early on, and ordering the small stones in the book felt like creating a journey through an art gallery. We wanted to give each stone the best place it could have, and give the reader an experience to remember.

After having printed out the 320 stones and cutting each one out, we went down to the shrine room. (It's the only room that the cats aren't supposed to inhabit, and we were going to spread out all the bits of paper in order on the floor, you can imagine the fun our two feline monsters would have had....)

We grouped the pieces of writing into sections quite instinctively. Each group was seeded with one of the prose pieces of writing, or one of the quotes about the process of writing. We then took each stone in turn and placed it in one of the sections. Slowly, themes started to appear. One 'chapter' has more domestic stones, one has more about the relationships between people, and another had a more humorous feel.

The next stage was to order the small stones within each chapter. We were quite thoughtful here, looking at stones which seemed to speak to one another, or touch on similar themes or imagery. We asked each other questions - was it right to have a stone in which it's raining heavily followed by a stone in which the ground is covered in snow?

It was a really lovely process and I think we'e created something special. All the stones are already out there in the world, on peoples websites, and in their journals - this is a collection of our favorites. They express something about the world freshly, they are well observed and well written or they appealed to us in some mysterious way. I hope you like it as much as we do.

You can preview the book below, and it's available to buy in three formats: the paperback, the hardback gift edition, and the ebook (pdf).

If you enjoyed an appreciated taking part in the January river of stones, and the time that Fiona and I gave to the whole project and want to express your support, or if you'd just like a beautiful collection of small stones, please do click on the link above and order a copy - or one for you, and one for a friend ;)

(This post also appears at my personal weblog - Purple Clouds)

Pay attention! The river of stones book is OUT NOW!

2011-03-02T23:03:00.001Z

'pay attention: a river of stones' is NOW AVAILABLE! (for a preview, see the bottom of this post...)

You can buy the gorgeous paperback, the ultra-stunning hardback and the marvellous download from Lulu right now.

You will receive 320 amazing small stones written by all of you lovely talented people, short prose pieces written by Kaspa & me, longer quotes by several small-stoners and an appendix with lots of information about how to write small stones. It's packed full of beautiful writing.

We've kept the prices deliberately low as we're hoping that you won't just buy one for yourself but one for your mum and one for your brother-in-law and one for your local library. You could also give your friends the gift of paying more attention and connecting with the world.

Lulu charges more than Amazon for postage, but if you buy three books it's almost the same postage as buying one. The book will be available on Amazon but it'll be a little while before it appears there. I don't know about you but we can't wait that long...

Kaspa & I would love it if you could help us spread the word. You could interview us about the process of making the book on your blog, or you could write a piece for your local paper (with a nice photo of you holding the book). Share the links on Facebook and Twitter. And if anyone else has any ideas, do add them to the comments section before.

We're really proud to have produced such a beautiful book - and to have been involved in this project - you've made us very happy with your enthusiastic participation and with all your supportive comments.

Here's to us. Let the river flow.

Pens down! (Keep Writing)

2011-03-01T15:49:00.002Z

What a month! It's been amazing reading through all the small stones everyone has sent us for the book. I think I've replied to everyone now, so if you haven't heard anything do let me know.

I've learnt how many things there are to notice in the world and I've learnt how many of us notice the same things: a beautiful sunset, a robin on a fence, and lots and lots of snow.

I've learnt that everyone has something to say and something to offer.

I've been reminded that I can be judgmental, that Fiona and I like different things and that sometimes we find the same things grating (writing that misses out articles and prepositions just to sound 'poetic').

I imagine that if someone else were in our shoes they would have chosen differently, and I expect we've missed some really good pieces of writing out there in the blogosphere, and in people's journals and notebooks, but that's okay.

The next job is to transform what we have at the moment, one long list of everyone's stones, into a book manuscript, including the other little pieces of writing we have, introductions and appendices.

We're no longer accepting submissions for pay attention: a river of stones but I encourage you all to keep writing - keep your small stone blogs going, and keep writing in your journals. Join the Writing Our Way Home forums if you want support and encouragement from other writers.

If you want to learn about writing then read lots too: devour poetry, savour each word, find out how what you like works; collect beautiful prose. Ask 'how do others write about the world?'

I've been reading David Mamet's South of the N. E. Kingdom. It's slow and delicious, I've learnt as much about the craft of writing as I have about life in Vermont.

Keep an eye out for more book news, and for the July river of stones. We look forward to seeing you there.

LAST DAY for submitting your small stones for the book

2011-02-28T09:15:00.000Z

If you'd like to be in this GORGEOUS book, which already has nearly three hundred stunning small stones in it, we need your submission by the end of the day. Send up to ten small stones and your name to Kaspa at gentlespear@gmail.com. We're accepting small stones from people who've just started writing them as well as those who took part in the January river.

I've had some very lovely feedback on my free e-book about Lorrie, and my first Writing as Spiritual Practice e-course starts soon (I'm going to run one in April too now - if you're interested, email me fiona@fionarobyn.com). Our community forum for people interested in using writing as a way of connecting with the world is BLOOMING like a beautiful peony - come and have a look and let me know if you get stuck. So, what with editing books and cooking roasts and having ten people over yesterday for coffee, cake and Dharma and suchlike, we've been pretty busy ; )

I hope you all have a fantastic week. We'll be back with news of the book as soon as we have it. In the meantime, keep writing those small stones......

Get your free e-book & read Lorrie's story

2011-02-23T08:50:00.000Z

I finished my e-book yesterday - 'How to write your way home'.

It's my gift to you.

To download your copy, simply click here and then you can save the PDF onto your computer.

In it, you'll get to know Lorrie, who has pea-green eyes and mousey hair. She lives in a narrow grey house and works in a call-centre in a grey office building. If you asked her whether she was happy, she wouldn't know how to answer you. Until she is shown something that's right under her nose, and which changes everything...

Lorrie's story is stitched through the book, which also contains simple instructions to help you feel more connected to yourself & to the world, information on hunting & polishing small stones, advice on how to build a creative network & much more. A kind of manifesto, if you will.

If you enjoy it, you can help me out by sharing it with your friends and family - especially with people like Lorrie who could do with some more colour in their lives.

Let me know what you think : )

(Kaspa & I are making good progress on the river of stones book too. We've been BUSY! The closing date for submissions is the 28th of Feb - we won't be able to include any we receive after that date. Do send them through if you haven't already.)

Submissions up to 15th Feb replied to....

2011-02-17T11:56:00.000Z

We've just finished replying to all the book submissions up til the 15th of February with a 'yes please' or a 'not quite right please feel free to send some more'.

If you sent us a submission before this date, you should have an email from Kaspa in your inbox. If you haven't, do let us know.

We have a handful of submissions still to deal with, and as you know we're accepting them up until the 28th of February.

It's been wonderful to read all your work, and we've got such a bunch of jewels... you're going to LOVE the book!

Have wonderful Thursdays, Fiona (& Kaspa)

Quotes needed for the book... (and a gratuitous picture of cake)

2011-02-15T11:54:00.000Z

I just wrote a blog about this piece of cake and how it sucks to be self-employed sometimes. I'm putting it here too as it does look extraordinarily yummy and I'm hoping to find something similar when I go into town in a minute : )

We're still enjoying reading your small stone submissions. You have until the 28th of February to get them to us - if you're worried about whether we've received them or not, don't worry, we'll reply to everyone in the first week of March and if you don't hear from us there will still be time to send them through again. We've had too many submissions to reply to everyone individually. You can imagine the logistics of at least 2600 small stones.... a river indeed.

We're also enjoying writing some pieces to slot in amongst your small stones. We already have some quotes from your blogs which we'll be using - we'll get in touch with you individually to ask permission first of course - but if anyone else would like to write anything about their experience of writing small stones do email it through to me (fiona@fionarobyn.com) or Kaspa (gentlespear@gmail.com).

Thank you!

Thank you for your submissions so far

2011-02-11T10:14:00.000Z

A photo of lavender because the sun is shining this morning, and I'm watching the bulbs appear in the garden and dreaming of bees and sun-cream and lying on the grass with a book.

Since our reminder for submissions we've had 50 more entries, bringing the total up to more than 200.

I'd always thought it would be marvellous to have 300, so we're hoping some of you are still hanging onto your small stones before you skip them one by one into the middle of the river. One or ten, send them to gentlespear@gmail.com. And make sure your friends have done the same - even if they write their very first stone this afternoon.

A short post, which is always a good excuse for a poem. Here's one of my old favourites. Have lovely Fridays x

It Was Like This: You Were Happy

It was like this:

you were happy, then you were sad,

then happy again, then not.

It went on.

You were innocent or you were guilty.

Actions were taken, or not.

At other times you were silent.

Mostly, it seems you were silent – what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness –

between you, there is nothing to forgive –

but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment

he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you

or your days: they will be wrong,

they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,

all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,

you slept, you awakened.

Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

Jane Hirschfield

The dirty business of publishing (and a new daily small stone group)

2011-02-10T09:41:00.001Z

When I was on a poetry course once, our tutor talked to us one evening about, as he put it, 'the dirty business of publishing'. This seemed like a perfectly apt description to me.

It's all very well having pure intentions about connecting with the world.

What happens when we ask you for your submissions for the river of stones book?

If you're used to submitting your work, you might be like me - sending your writing off with only a faint mix of hope, fear and weariness.

If you've never sent any of your writing to be looked at with critical eyes, you might be quaking underneath the sofa.

Those used to submitting will know this process well. Our egos really come to attention when we think we're going to be judged (which we are). Some people will struggle with a too-large ego (how DARE they not like my writing? Are they stupid or just mad?) and others with a terrible sense of unworthiness (what makes me think I have any right to ask anyone to read my work?).

If we want to get published in traditional places, then that's just the beginning of the dirty business of publishing. Next there are the rejections (there will be many if we want to be published), and how we recover from them. There is the problem of being accepted, which might lead to a sugar-rush of pride which leads us wanting more (more more more). There's the fear of what people will think of our words when they're out in the world (will they think it's any good? Will they understand us?). There's the disappointment of low sales, or the book not looking like we hoped it would look. Etc. Etc. Etc.

It would feel easier sometimes to keep all my writing in a beautiful notebook under my pillow. Writing only for ourselves is a very good thing - it changes us, and when we change we will have different interactions with the world.

What we're doing with the river of stones book is a much softer version of the usual business of publishing. We are making judgements - whether we like this small stone better, or this one. We can't avoid that. But we'd love to include small stones from as many people as we possibly can - whether you're a beginner or an old hand. We've already taken a lovely small stone from over 95% of current submissions, even though you haven't heard from us yet.

And we are very glad that 160 of you have sent us your small stone submissions. Regardless of how they're written (which varies depending on how much writing (and reading) you've done previously, how carefully things are observed, your use of language, and a good hefty dose of Kaspa & I's idiosyncratic personal opinion) I've such enjoyed knowing that you have been writing in January, and sharing in your worlds.

Sharing what we've written can be very rewarding. There's NOTHING like knowing that you've made someone else smile, or nod in recognition, or say 'mmm' at an exquisite description. You've given me & Kaspa that gift. Thank you. Keep sending those submissions in.

In other exciting news, Margo has started a group on our new community forum called 'Daily Gathering', for anyone who is interested in continuing the daily small stone challenge (or less frequently). There's space to post your daily small stones, and also the possibility to discuss form, technique etc. Most of all you'll have the opportunity to encourage and be encouraged by other writers in the same position as you. To sign up for the forum you need to answer a few questions (e.g. what are your favourite authors) and then I'll 'approve' you (this is just to stop spammers joining the forum). Then find the groups on the left hand side. We look forward to seeing you there.

Book cover! pay attention: a river of stones

2011-02-08T17:32:00.001Z

the river of stones book

Here it is! The cover design for the book we're creating to remember and celebrate the January 2011 river. (If you are on our mailing list you will have seen this already.)

Since the beginning of this month, well over a hundred people have submitted ten of their favorite stones for us to consider. It's been really interesting to read through the submissions and see which themes occur over and over again, to see what works well as a small-stone and what doesn't work so well.

Right from the beginning of the project we've been encouraging you to really look, and listen and so on and record what you discover. The best of the stones are ones that put us straight in touch with the world, often in a fresh way. In the best small stones, the writer is almost invisible.

I looked up Vicki Feaver's page on the Poetry Archive after I learnt she was reading at The Shore in Edinburgh, along with small stone writer Alistair Cook (who will be reading some small stones there). At the top of the page is a wonderful quote from Feaver that echoes what I've learnt reading the stones:

In a good poem the poet disappears. That's what the struggle with language is all about. The point is that in the finished poem you don't lay yourself bare. You create a strongbox of words

For me, when a writer lays themselves bare it creates a closed piece of writing without any mystery. I'm reminded of what the Japanese playwright Zeami said: "When you feel ten, express seven." The audience is drawn in by the mystery; into conversation with the performer. In the space between seven and ten there is a question: What is hidden? What is the mystery of human nature? Of the world?

The best small stones leave me with something to think about, rather than telling me how it is. If the question of the stone is answered in the stone - what is there to take away?

We've included something from nearly everyone that has submitted to us. The ones that we're not including fall into two categories, they are either too long and not small stones, or they lay the writer bare, to the exclusion of anything else.

We have had some really lovely submissions. If you have written small stones and haven't submitted, we'd still love to hear from you. I know looking at my own stones I sometimes don't want anyone else to see them at all, but a fresh pair of eyes might see something completely different. Send, send, send!

The submission deadline is the 28th February. Email ten of your favorites to me, Kaspalita. Please write your small stones in the body of the email and include your name.

What next? Book submissions and more

2011-02-01T18:05:00.003Z

(image by zimpenfish)

Wow. It's been really wonderful reading everyone's last stones. As well of the stones lots of people have either emailed or written on their blogs about the process of writing and how good it's been. It's been really touching to read everyone's comments and stories. Fiona and I are really pleased how well a river of stones has taken off. Thank you all.

What next?

1) Join the writing community at Writing Our Way Home.

2) Look out for the July 2011 river of stones.

3) Submit to the January 2011 book (see below).

a river of stones book

To remember the January 2011 river Fiona and I are going to produce a beautiful book with a selection of your stones in. We spent some time looking at cover designs this morning and I'm very excited. As well as lots of wonderful pieces of your writing we're going to include some articles about the process of observing and of writing.

what you need to do to submit

Although Fiona and I have read lots of your stones, because so many people were writing it's been impossible to read every single one. I'd like each person who wants to be included in the book to choose up to ten small stones and email me.

A book has a finite number of pages and so Fiona and I are going to wield the editorial red pen. We want this to be really special and will be choosing stones that compliment one another.

In the body of the email please put up to ten of your favourite stones (polish them first, if you like) and your name. Nothing else (we're hoping to get lots and lots of these, so I want to make it as easy for us to collate as possible). Please put aros in the subject of the email, and send it to me: Kaspalita (gentlespear@gmail.com)

Submission deadline: Feburary 28th

Remember, this isn't the end. Lots of people are still writing small stones everyday, and even if you stop writing, the practice of being open the world is one we can all engage in (I know I have room for improvement here!)

Thank you again everyone... Until next time.

Warmest,

Kaspa & Fiona

The sound of silence (and win a free book)

2011-02-01T11:49:00.000Z

Thank you all SO much for your small stones and lovely comments and emails. We'll be back soon with submission requirements for the river of stones book, but in the meantime I thought you might enjoy one of the weekly musings from my book A Year of Questions: How to slow down and fall in love with life. I'm giving three copies away as a celebration of the new site and forum, if you'd like to be in with a chance of winning, just email me with 'book' as the title before the 14th of Feb. It might be your Valentine...

*

This weekend I'm off to Salisbury for a day-long meditation. There will be an opportunity to sit still in a silent room with other people for half hour intervals from 10 am until 4 pm. Nobody will look up into each other’s eyes once we have begun. We’ll be on our own.

There's a part of me that can't wait for this. A whole day to sit and just be. And there's another part that's terrified! What will it be like to stop 'doing' for so long? What will emerge from the silence?

This meditation day is a chapter in my ongoing battle between clearing space in my life and filling it back up again. No sooner have I arranged a free weekend or cut back on a commitment, than I find myself saying yes to something else, or deciding to start a new writing project.

I know that more space is a good thing for me. It feeds my muse, and it puts me back in touch with who I am and what I really want. But I need to acknowledge that it's scary too. Sometimes it’s only when we give ourselves enough space that we get ill, or feel sad or angry. What have I been trying to avoid?

Things you might be curious about

What happens when you give yourself enough space to get in touch with yourself? What resistance do you have to doing nothing and just being? What opportunities might you have to stop doing and start being a bit more?

Suggestions for this week

Put aside a short period of time each day to be quiet, or a longer period at the weekend. Sit and do nothing. During this time, note the thoughts and feelings that arise and then let them go. Afterwards, be gently curious about what came up for you.

I love the deep quiet in which I live and grow against the world and harvest what they cannot take from me by fire or sword.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Post your last small stone here!

2011-01-30T17:35:00.001Z

We're nearly there!

Tomorrow's small stone, on Monday the 31st of January, will be the last of the challenge.

Share it with us by posting it as a comment on this blog. Let's see how many we can gather.

I do hope some of you might carry on past the end of January. We're working on a new page to gather all your small stones together - you'll need to post your small stones to a separate blog (or have a separate RSS feed) to be eligible.

We'll let you know how to submit your favourite ten small stones for possible inclusion in the forthcoming 'river of stones' soon.

Many small-stoners are gathered at our new Writing Our Way Home community forum - do pop along and say hello.

Over to you. Thank you so much for your company during January. Me and Kaspa have had a truly WONDERFUL time reading all the stones and hearing about your experiences. Roll on July ; )

A new offering

2011-01-27T11:28:00.000Z

I've posted about the crystallisation of my new offering to the world at the newly named blog for Writing Our Way Home. I hope you like how Kaspa made that bird perch on the end of my squiggle ; )

You've already done lots of 'spreading the news' for us, so I won't ask you to do any more, but I do hope we might see you at our new forum at some point - the ideal place to post small stones, enter into conversation, eat virtual cake.

It's good to hear that people are already planning to sign up for our July write-a-small-stone-every-day challenge. But January isn't quite over yet...

We're getting excited about the marvellous morsels we're expecting once we open submissions to the 'river of stones' book. In the meantime you can always submit to my blogzine, a handful of stones.

I hope you're seeing more clearly, wherever you are, and whatever life is throwing at you.

BRAND new Writing Our Way Home forum (all singing all dancing)

2011-01-25T12:12:00.001Z

........drumroll.........

We have a community forum!

It's called Writing Our Way Home, and it's for anyone who's interested in writing as a way of feeling more at home with ourselves and in the world.

It's about an hour old, and we already have some sterling inaugural members. I'd LOVE it if you become one too - whether you write small stones or in a journal, whether you belong to a spiritual tradition or are spiritually ambivalent, whether you are web-savvy or not. Just click on the link and say hello.

There's also a new website to go with the new brand, designed BEAUTIFULLY by lovely Kaspa.

What do you think?

Can't wait to see you there.

Day 23 already, hellebores and manifestos

2011-01-23T10:39:00.000Z

(start here if you're new)

Yesterday I visited Stroud with two friends. Caroline bought a tangle of golden wild mushrooms from a man who told us where the best cafe in the town was. In the best cafe in town we ate fresh chewy sourdough and shared a table with the wife of the owner, who told us where the farmer's market was. In the farmer's market we met a potter who'd emigrated from New Zealand many years ago and had a soft kind face. She was selling these luminous hellebores. I wish I'd bought them.

small stones abounded.

You are writing to tell us that this project is helping you to keep your senses open, and become more intimate with the world. It is helping you find moments of peace. Writing small stones is leading you gently back into writing after some time away, and helping your confidence. Your usual and your small stone blogs are merging into each other. As I've said before (but it needs re-saying) this makes us very happy.

Look at the blogroll on the right. The small stones keep coming.

I'm still working on my Writing as Spiritual Practice e-course, writing about the links between writing and faith, perseverance, clear-seeing and praise. I'm loving it. (It's full for March so let me know if you'd like to go on the 'interested' list for May or Sep.) When I've finished that, I'll be re-designing my sites and writing a 'manifesto' (inspired by the very wonderful Chris Guillebeau). Kaspa & I will be asking for submissions for the river of stones book in mid-Feb. And we're hoping some of you might join us in a July challenge - to write a small stone every day in July - which will give us a chance to pick up some sunny stones. All that, and more. The river is flowing.

Keep letting us know how you're getting on. It's a gift to know that many of you are out there in the world, pen in hand.

Really seeing the other leads to freedom

2011-01-19T19:01:00.003Z

This week my teacher Dharamvidya David Brazier has been in Israel leading some workshops on psychology. In one of them he talked about how really seeing the other can set you free.

What he describes is also the philosophy that underpins this whole project, and I owe a great debt to him, and others, for teaching me.

"...the focus is upon discerning the truth of the other and achieving spiritual maturity. One achieves liberation for oneself by releasing others from the attachment generated by one's own deluded and stereotypical perception of them. The self-construct is the mirror image of these false views of others. To see the truth of the other is to release them and thereby, incidentally, to release oneself from one's self-construct." Love and Its Disappointment blog

Becoming more humble

2011-01-18T11:27:00.000Z

(go here if you're new here)

We have a brand spanking new page for a river of stones on Facebook - do come along and bring all your friends. There are still plenty of biscuits left. (Also known as cookies).

I wrote about doing prostrations on my Planting Words blog today. What do you think about the links between ego and writing small stones? Is there a place for becoming more humble? Are there any disadvantages? I'd be very interested to read your thoughts as always.

Right - better get on with writing my small stone for yesterday ; )

The physical world pours in

2011-01-16T15:12:00.001Z

(if you haven't started writing small stones yet, there's plenty of time... all the time in the world)

Thanks to Jacqueline for her small stone photo of Sumi's paws. There are some very fine photos and small stones on Olivia's blog too. And many many many many many many finely observed small stones being scattered by you, fine reader, and everyone else in the river, all across the world.

Our very own in-the-river Claire is currently at third place for the Shorty Awards in the Poetry category - if you'd like to vote for her go here, or Tweet something like this: "I nominate @ThoseThr3Words for a Shorty Award in #poetrybecause... she's in the river! http://bit.ly/shorty"

I found a lovely essay by Linda Gregg this week (The Art of Finding), whilst doing research for my 'Writing as Spiritual Practice' course (only one space left for March, but I'm hoping to run it again in May and September so email me if you'd like to go down on the reserve list or the might-be-interested-list.)

I wanted to share this paragraph in full as it fits so perfectly with what we're trying to do.

Do share your experiences of writing small stones in the comments section, and with each other. Do visit each other's blogs. Do remember that this exercise is to help us enjoy the world - and to help us get right up close to it, so close we can see the hairs on its nose.

Keep up the sterling work!

"I am astonished in my teaching to find how many poets are nearly blind to the physical world. They have ideas, memories, and feelings, but when they write their poems they often see them as similes. To break this habit, I have my students keep a journal in which they must write, very briefly, six things they have seen each day—not beautiful or remarkable things, just things. This seemingly simple task usually is hard for them.

At the beginning, they typically "see" things in one of three ways: artistically, deliberately, or not at all. Those who see artistically instantly decorate their descriptions, turning them into something poetic: the winter trees immediately become "old men with snow on their shoulders," or the lake looks like a "giant eye." The ones who see deliberately go on and on describing a brass lamp by the bed with painful exactness. And the ones who see only what is forced on their attention: the grandmother in a bikini riding on a skateboard, or a bloody car wreck. But with practice, they begin to see carelessly and learn a kind of active passivity until after a month nearly all of them have learned to be available to seeing—and the physical world pours in.

Their journals fill up with lovely things like, "the mirror with nothing reflected in it." This way of seeing is important, even vital to the poet, since it is crucial that a poet see when she or he is not looking—just as she must write when she is not writing. To write just because the poet wants to write is natural, but to learn to see is a blessing. The art of finding in poetry is the art of carrying the sacred to the world, the invisible to the human."

Are you failing?

2011-01-13T11:38:00.000Z

(not too late to start writing small stones - go here)

Are you failing?

This is from Ghost Writer at Lime Tree Legends.

I wonder who else out there might have started with good intentions and tailed off. Or missed a day and given up.

As Ghost Writer says, it doesn't matter. As writers (as people) the important thing is to begin again.

And again.

One small stone, or even ten seconds of looking for one, is better than none.

Do share your own experiences of perseverance (how to or how not to!) in the comments.

I only have three spaces (from 16) left on my Writing as Spiritual Practice course now (taking place during March) - if you'd like to join the wonderful pioneering participants who've already signed up, please do. If you can't do March, I'm thinking of May and September for future courses so you could put your name down. Email me.

This white space is crying out for a poem. How's this for fine observation? And then I'm crying out for a cup of tea. Have lovely days, smallstoners.

Notes from a Tunisian Journal

This nutmeg stick of a boy in loose trousers!

Little coffee pots in the coals, a mint on the tongue.

The camels stand in all their vague beauty -

at night they fold up like pale accordians.

All the hedges are singing with yellow birds!

A boy runs by with lemons in his hands.

Food's perfume, breath is nourishment.

The stars crumble, salt above eucalyptus fields.

Rita Dove

Can we ever really 'see clearly'? (a question, not an answer)

2011-01-12T08:00:00.000Z

(photo by MontyPython)

By way of the grape vine I heard someone asking "Does knowing we're going to write about it take away from really seeing what's there, in the moment?".

I think that's a really interesting question, but it points to a deeper question for me "Can we ever really see what's there?"

I think that we probably can wipe the grosser stains of our wind-shields, and see through the glass into the world more clearly. But I'm no longer convinced we can get rid of the glass

"Does knowing we're going to write about it take away from really seeing what's there, in the moment?"

On not having the foggiest idea

2011-01-11T07:24:00.000Z

(it's not too late to start writing small stones - join us)

A couple of things to let you know about. I'm giving away a copy of The Productive Writer by the very marvellous Sage Cohen on my blog later today - just leave a comment if you'd like to be in with a chance of winning this amazing book. I interviewed her a few days ago, here.

And I'm going to be running an e-course on Writing as Spiritual Practice during March - if you're interested in the links between writing and clear-seeing, perseverance, praise and faith then read more here. It'd be lovely to have you accompany me on the journey we'll be taking.

*

I was trawling back through my blog Planting Words today and I found this piece on not having the foggiest. I think it is helpful for us to try and find that place of not knowing in order to write small stones - Suzuki Shunryu's beginner's mind. But not knowing (Keats' negative capability) can be an alien and discomforting place to rest. How good are you at not knowing? How often does certainty rush in (prematurely) to fill the gaps?

*

Yesterday afternoon I decided to make a path between my vegetable patch beds by putting down weed suppressing membrane and covering it with bark chip.
I didn't have the foggiest idea what I was doing. I didn't know if I was strong enough to get the five bags of bark chip into my car. I didn't know how to attach the membrane to the soil. I didn't know if the whole project was a waste of time - if my path would be a complete failure.

It reminded me of starting my first novel, Thaw. I didn't know anything about writing fiction. I hadn't read any how-to books or taken any classes. I didn't know anyone writing novels. I'd read prodigiously all my life and written poetry for years, but had never put more than a few hundred words together, never mind eighty thousand.

The only way to approach it without scaring myself half to death was by calling it an experiment. I decided to write 1000 words a day and just see where I got to. This is how I felt about my vegetable patch project yesterday and, now I come to think of it, about most of my life.

The path is finished - it looks a little raggedy, but it's functional. I'm rather proud of it. I'm currently working on my fourth novel, and I still don't have the foggiest idea about what I'm doing or how it will turn out. Isn't it fun?!

Walk in someone else's shoes.

2011-01-10T12:01:00.000Z

(photo by jef safi)

The wisdom of the internet suggests that walking a mile in someone else's shoes was a metaphor first expressed in the Muslim tradition. (Thank you Yahoo! answers). Harper Lee uses it in To Kill a Mockingbird. Since then it's become common wisdom but how many of us really have a go at imagining what someone else's life is like?

We notice what supports 'the sort of person I am'

Usually what we see or hear is what appeals to some side of our personality, either that or something that we definitely don't like. We miss so many things that lack energy for us, and other people miss things that have energy for us. (The dirty dishes, the pile of laundry...how the sunlight catches our favourite ornament.)

We've been inviting you to really pay attention to the world. To notice one moment each day and write about it. I'm sure that I could place a few of you in the same room and you would each notice and write something different.

Imagine what someone else would see.

A couple of years ago, on a training course I was on I was asked to write down what I noticed in a room I was in. I was then invited to imagine myself into the character of my mother, to walk into the same room and write down what she noticed. It was like being in a different room.

Try it now - close your eyes and imagine yourself into the character of someone you know well. Open your eyes again and see what looks different....

Stepping out of yourself can shake up how we see the world, and let in things we might not usually have seen.

When you notice your small stone today why not have a look and see what might be in that place that catches someone else's eye? You could choose a real person, like me looking around the room with my mother's eyes, or you could choose a favourite character from a novel... what does Atticus Finch see?

Let me know how you get on.

~Kaspa

The river is bursting its banks...

2011-01-09T10:19:00.002Z

If you're new here, find out about small stones (above) and then get involved.

This river shows no signs of abating.

I've just re-written the 'About' and 'Get involved' sections to include our January challenge as one element of the river.

We might challenge you to a-stone-a-day during July as well as January next year. We're making a river of stones book in the Spring. We hope people will continue using the #aros hash-tag on Twitter. I'm in the middle of writing an online course on 'Writing as Spiritual Practice' which will run for the first time during March. And we'd LOVE it if people continued writing small stones in their notebooks and online.

And we've got a proper mailing list now, you can sign up here.

Keep letting us know how you're getting on with the practice. Enjoy.

(Thanks to Kaspa for the river photo!)

*

"I have been writing from quite a young age, and the writing has always been something of its own, in a way, it was never something I did to say anything, to voice an opinion, but something that was as good as a way of existing in the world, almost a way to make yourself exist in the world, at least exist there in a good way, through what you wrote, which then lived there, so naturally, in its own existence. For when I write something I feel is well written, something new has come into the world, something that wasn't there before, I have, as it were, created existence, and this, the joy of writing people and stories, yes, whole universes no one knew about, not even I, before I had written them, surprises me, and gives me joy. No one knew about this, not before I wrote it. And where does it come from? I've no idea, because it is new to me as well. I probably hadn't thought about it before. Writing, good writing, will therefore always be a place where something unknown, something which didn't exist before, is given existence. And that, writing as a state where something, yes in a sense even a whole new universe, is created and given a kind of existence for the first time, is perhaps what I enjoy most about writing. A whole new universe comes into being every time you write well. Because all good texts, yes poems too, are in a certain sense a new universe, which did not exist before, but which is created in good writing."
- Jon Fosse

from The Gnosis of Writing via the very wonderful whiskey river

It's NEVER too late to join us in the river

2011-01-06T18:35:00.001Z

(Read the rest of this post then go here if you're new!)

Well, I'm still rather in love with the stones at the odd inkwell, all using text found in an 1800 children's school reader. I'm not quite sure what a reader is though - somebody help the Brit out...

A handful of people are still joining the river every day, as the ripples spread outwards (thanks to you already-in-the-river folks). A lot of them have been saying to me 'we'd love to join if it's ok with you, it's late?

As I said on Twitter this morning, late schmate.

I'm still very happy to add you to our blogroll. And anyone who writes a small stone before mid-February will be free to submit it to our 'river of stones' book (which we're very excited about). Write in your notebook, write online, we don't care. Just write. (And email me if you want to receive my occasional updates.)

Johannes suggested today that we have a river in different seasons. We're thinking about something in July... something different... so the river won't be stopping at the end of January. I don't think we could stop it if we wanted to.

I do hope you're enjoying the observing and the writing. Do let us know how you're getting on - what are the best bits? The worst bits? Which are your favourite stones? Feel free to re-post them here or in our Facebook group or on your fridge or on your mum's fridge.

Happy weekend! I'll leave you with one of my favourite creativity poems...

*

Muse

for E.T.

“Write something every day, she said”,

“even if it’s only a line,

it will protect you”.

How should this be?

Poetry opens no cell,

heals no hurt body,

brings back no lover,

altogether, poetry is

powerless as grass.

How then should it defend us?

Only by strengthening

our fierce and obstinate centres.

Elaine Feinstein

Being human (but is it any good????)

2011-01-06T08:48:00.000Z

(It's certainly not too late to join us... lots of January left! start here)

Thanks to Douglas for today's photo - have a look at his blog The Net Mender for more photos and small stones.

I don't know about you, but I'm human.

This means that, for me, writing is rarely as straightforward as enjoying the process of paying attention.

Is anyone reading me? How many hits did we get today? Has anyone commented? Is it any good? Is it any good? Is it any good?????

Most of us writers write because we want to be read (you notebooking small stoners can feel very smug at this point). We have something to say, and we want people to hear it. There are a mix of motivations for this - I truly hope that my writing helps people in some way - but there are always ego-driven motivations somewhere in the mix.

How do we handle these aspects of the writing life?

I think it is helpful to feel OK about having these thoughts and feeling these feelings. Most of us do. Maybe if you're brave enough you can admit to them in the comments section. I guarantee you're not alone.

I also think it's helpful to notice these ego-driven thoughts when they arise. Ah, there's my crushing self-doubt again. Oh, hello old friend, 'how many hits have I got'.

Finally, maybe it's also OK to REALLY enjoy any positive feedback we do get from others. Take it in. Bask. Feed on it.

And to encourage ourselves too.

Writing things down can be a perilous task. We are exposing something of ourselves for everyone to see. Sometimes people will like our writing, and sometimes they won't. Sometimes they'll be kind, and sometimes they won't. We need to learn to nurture ourselves through the ups and downs.

Here's to being human, with all our frailties and arrogance and fear and mistakes and joy and beauty and wonder and love.

Noticing with all your senses

2011-01-05T08:00:00.002Z

(If you're new - you can still join! click here)

I've been enjoying lots of your stones and I've noticed that the first thing I do is picture them in my minds eye. For me the sight is the most predominate sense. I have to make an effort of will to imagine the sound of birds, or rain or cars drifting by.

When I write I also think I have a tendency to hone in on the visual aspect first. Noticing this I want to encourage all of us to notice with all of our senses, and to try and capture something we might not usually capture in our stones.

You could try listening for your small stone today, or feeling its texture with your fingers, or noticing its smell drifting before you.

In 'Had I not been awake' Seamus Heany's first poem in Human Chain he writes about...

...A wind that rose and whirled until the roof

Pattered with quick leaves off the sycamore

and I can hear it.

Can we look anew?

2011-01-04T08:00:00.001Z

There is a part of everything which is unexplored, because we are accustomed to using our eyes only in association with the memory of of what people before us have thought we were looking at.

Flaubert, quoted in preface to Pierre and Jean, in Maupassant's 'The Novel'

James Wood quotes Flaubert in How Fiction Works. Wood attributes the rise of the modern novel to Flaubert. But what interested me was the observation above, in a section where Wood is talking about the satisfaction of specific detail. I'll come back to that in another post.

Our minds are the repositories of stories. We tell stories about people we know, we imagine we know their lives, outer and inner. We tell stories about the places we live in, and about the jobs we do. The most powerful of these stories has to do with how we feel about ourself, "...this is the sort of person I am". This most powerful of stories tends to be at the heart of all the stories we tell.

Each time we encounter something in the world, a loved one, the view from a mountain top, a favourite book in a library, we receive it through the eyes of these stories. I am the person who loves you, we have this history together... and so on.

Flaubert's point is that we not only encounter the world through these personal stories, but that we encounter the world through the eyes and memories of others. We inherit stories, from our peers, from our parents and increasingly from the media.

When we see the Union Jack flying, we have a sense of history, of an Empire perhaps and whatever feelings that might bring up, pride or shame. We are full of stories. Who amongst us would only see a few red and blue triangles, printed onto a white rectangle of fabric?

There is a part of each thing which is hidden from us. We obscure with stories, as much as we enlighten with them.

The act of really paying attention is not to ignore these stories, but to see the transparency of them, to see them but to look beyond to the mystery too.

What mysteries will you uncover today?

How to catch small stones

2011-01-03T08:46:00.001Z

(if you're new here it's not too late to join us... read more here)

I'm a teensy bit frazzled. There have been lots of lovely people joining us and I've been adding them to the blogroll and dealing with little technical hitches all day. I'm very pleased to be so busy. If you've emailed or left a message here we'll get to you as soon as we can (email is easier if you can...)

This lovely photo was taken in Wells-next-to-the-sea Debs, who is taking one every day as her small stone. Thanks Debs.

I was going to share a few small stones with you this morning, but there are so many wonderful ones and I don't want to play favourites... you'll have to get out there and find your favourites for yourself (use the blogroll on the right or the River on the top left). Do leave supportive comments for each other. We're all in this together.

And here's an extract of something I wrote a while ago about how to write small stones - hope it's helpful. Keep observing!

Where will I find small stones?

Small stones are everywhere, all of the time. All you have to do is pause and let them appear. You’ll know when you see one, because it will set off a small burst of feeling inside you. It might be that you really notice the ugliness of a piece of chewed gum on the pavement, or the beauty of a pigeon, or vice versa. An overheard snippet of conversation might strike you as amusing, or strange. Whatever you notice, you will be noticing it with fresh eyes.

How do I pick up my small stones?

The best way is to catch them as they occur, by carrying a note-book around with you and jotting down some notes straight away. If you don’t have any paper, the back of your hand will do. If you don’t have a pen, play around with some words in your head and hold onto them until you can catch them on paper. You might want to write a lot down to start with - let your imagination off the leash. When you’ve written down everything you can think of, you can go through what you’ve got and choose the words that seem to get you close to what you originally noticed. There - a small stone!

How do I polish up my stones?

The following check-list will help you to polish your stone up until it is as perfect as you can make it:

* Have you used precise words?

Was the berry red or was it scarlet?

* Is every single word necessary?

In a short piece of writing, every word must earn its keep. If it doesn’t add anything, take it out!

* Have you shown us something or told us something?

It is usually more effective to describe something and let the reader draw their own conclusions, than to ‘spell it out’. Rather than writing ‘the sky was beautiful’, show us the sky.

* How does it look on the page?

Do you want to use a title? How do you want to use capital letters and punctuation? Do you want to break up your sentence into shorter pieces and put them underneath each other? Fiddle about until it looks right.

* What does it sound like when you read it out loud?

Does the rhythm please you? Do you stumble at the same point every time? How do the words sound next to each other? Fiddle about until it sounds right.

There are no right or wrong answers to any of these questions – part of being a writer is discovering your own unique ‘way with words’. The important thing is that you take time to consider them, and do some tinkering. This tinkering should be fun – be playful.

Technical gremlins (and keep writing)

2011-01-02T10:40:00.002Z

Good Morning Stoners,

I woke up this morning to find a whole heap of lovely fragments of poetry, and a long list of new people taking part. And also to find that the River of Stones page, where everyone's writing is collated isn't working.

I used Yahoo! pipes to filter and collect the small stones from everyone's blogs, via your .rss feeds. Whilst the Pipes homepage is working, and you can see your river of stones there (on Yahoo!) this morning both the widget, which some people have embedded in their webpages, and the output .rss feed, which feeds our twitter account have stopped working.

If none of this means anything to you, don't worry - keep writing - and accept my apologies that both the twitter feed and The River of Stones page are down at the moment. You can use the blog roll on the right to see what other people are writing.

If you do know what I'm talking about, and have any bright ideas about what might be wrong, or an alternate way of collating many .rss feeds, do let me know in the comments below.

In the mean time, keep writing and keep checking back here - we've got some interesting posts lined up for the next day or so.

Warmest,

Kaspa

What is a small stone?

2011-01-01T08:00:00.008Z

(If you are new here - click here for the welcome post)

Firstly: Happy New Year!

Fiona and I have had fun watching the idea of a small stone travelling across the internet. Watching its journey from just a slip of a thought to becoming a thing in its own right. But what is that thing?

Fiona has been collecting small stones for years, her own fragments of writing at a small stone, and other people's at a handful of stones.

When I moved out of the Buddhist community I was living in I made a promise to start collecting my own small stones, but it's taken this project, and the momentum of a nearly two hundred other people writing to get me going. I've written a few pre-January stones at another small stone.

Haiku gone wrong?

Seeing someone writing that a small stone looked like "Haiku gone wrong" prompted this post.

A small stone might be a haiku, but it might not be. We're not asking for you to write in any form. What we're asking for is for you to look, and listen and taste and feel with all your attention, and then to put this into words. A tight form can help with this: T.S. Eliot talked about how having a good fixed structure can help reveal a deeper truth as your creativity is confined by the form.

But good haiku is difficult. The form has its own desires and sympathies, and it might not be the best way to describe the stone you have picked up. Perhaps a tanka might be better. I've written truly awful examples of both.

I'm not even sure a small stone is a poem. "What a poem is" is beyond the scope of this post (and beyond me).

Sometimes a small stone is just a few words that points to the moment, like this example by Mop from Poésie minimaliste - Minimalist poetry

Bath Time.
Five sparrows in the water.

Sometimes a small stone points to something seen inside a person, or felt about a person, like this stone by Rose Mary Boehm from Coming Up For Air

Need

They bought her a puppy
when what she needed
was her mum and a ride
across the far side
of the moon.

Be Playful!
No one is sitting here judging. Whilst we are encouraging you to really look, and listen and feel, take the chance to play a little with words as well. When you have your moment in mind, try capturing it just as a few words, or a couple of longer sentences or as a haiku and see what difference it makes.

For more about what a small stone is, and how to polish them, have a look at this article Fiona wrote a little while ago: Writing your own small stones

Feel free to ignore all of this advice ;) We hope that you are enjoying the writing, and discovering new things about the world around you.

~ Kaspa

On the brink

2010-12-31T10:26:00.000Z

(If you're new here, start here)

These are the Malvern hills, which we can see from our house windows. Isn't this path just begging you to follow it?

Our river begins tomorrow.

I've already decided on the word that will guide me during 2011. We've bought the ingredients for the bread pudding we'll be taking to our New Year's Eve gathering. We've arranged to meet friends to walk on the hills later today.

The New Year is just around the corner. Full of opportunity, bursting with the unknown. There will be hazards as well as wonders. There will be everso-steep parts of the hill as well as stunning views.

We can make sure we notice it as it rushes past us, one small stone at a time.

We're all in the river together. I'm very happy to be in such good company.

Enjoy your days - I'll see you on the other side : )

For when you get scared

2010-12-30T14:34:00.000Z

Writing can be a thorny business.

I've been doing it for many years now. I have four completed novels behind me, a book of poetry, a book of small stones, and a book of questions.

Maybe your small stones will leap eagerly and willingly into your laps, but if you're like the rest of the human race you might also have occasional thoughts like this.

What does your lover smell of? (the fun begins the day after tomorrow)

2010-12-30T09:47:00.002Z

(if this is your first visit, start here)

"Your lover, does he smell of cedar or pine, or lemon? Or tobacco? Have you ever washed an ashtray and wondered why it is so much more pungent when wet?"

This is Martha, telling her readers about our project. As she says, "...what started as a meditative process could well be a gold mine of writing prompts… or was it the other way round?". We hope some of you might find inspiration for longer pieces in your stones, and we'd love to see them when they're done.

Elaine has also signed up with her rather lovely blog - what peonies!

And Olivia wrote such a gorgeous piece, I'm going to share it all here. It heartened me because it describes exactly what I'm hoping for from this project. Do share your experiences of writing small stones with us.

And you know, it doesn't have to be small stones. That's just a label. Haiku, short stories, we're not fussy. Sketching, taking photographs... whatever. Just pay attention.

*

"I am going to be writing a ‘small stone’ each day in January – taking notice and observing and writing. On my way to the tube station today, I decide I need to practice. It is a 7 minute walk to the tube station, maybe 6 minutes today, as I run small parts of it, as I don’t want to miss my train. Even so, I notice – the wet, soft brown leaves, mushing on the pavement, concrete resisting their composting; the stump where there used to be a cherry tree that blossomed pink in the spring; the bright red wool hat and luminous yellow jacket of a council worker, giving out and attracting light on this gray day; the yellow lettering on the road in the bus stop bay worn away so that it now reads ‘us stop’; a baby in the warm clear bubble of his pram, incubated as he is perambulated, the father turning around to smile proudly at his – wife? - behind, catching me in the arc of his smile. And I smile back.

Until I am sat on the train, and start writing, and the sounds of words start bumping off of each other, I didn’t know that was how I saw those things – they were just leaves, a stump, a hat, worn-out road signs, a pram. In the writing, I appreciate what I have seen, and what I have been part of. I am confident now that I will be able to pick up and polish at least one small stone a day."

...crumbling back into soft clay and tiny stones...

2010-12-29T15:33:00.001Z

(if this is your first visit, start here)

Jessica at everything feeds process made this exquisite little journal for her small stones. I'm very jealous.

People are still signing up for the river and some are getting rather excited about it. I'm glad. We should be excited, because this project is about engaging the world.

It is not about creating wonderful writing, although that is sure to be a by-product.

It is not about beating ourselves up if we miss a day or can't get our small stone to look right.

It's about attempting to put all that aside, and be curious in our object, the 'other'. What does his voice sound like? What is the texture of that crinkled leaf? What does the colour of that bird remind you of?

What we're aiming for is to grow small, as Caroline has written below. Let's dance!

"The world grows. We grow small. Like violets on an old path, the world fills the cracks of our being. We are invaded by life in all its complex beauty and weather into relationship with the material world. We soften. Just as bricks lose their hard edges, their constituents crumbling back into soft clay and tiny stones, so too, we find our resting place in the greater processes of life. No need to defend now. We are surrounded by the light of life, and in it we dance."

(From Caroline Brazier's The Other Buddhism)

Two days... an exercise, and your experiences

2010-12-29T09:53:00.000Z

Not long to wait now.

If you'd like to get some practice in, here's an interesting exercise I found via Matt at Morden Haiku - the author has given me permission to link to it here.

If anyone would like to make some notes about the experience of writing small stones, I'd be interested in seeing them - email them through, or blog them, or both. It might be interesting to use some quotes from you all in the introduction to the book we make.

There's still time to join us... you don't have to let us know, just start writing small stones on the 1st!

Three days... reaching out beyond our small selves

2010-12-28T08:09:00.000Z

(if you're new here, welcome...)

At the moment I'm reading The Other Buddhism by Caroline Brazier, which speaks about Pureland Buddhism - the biggest school of Buddhism in Japan, but still relatively little known here in the West.

Pureland encourages us to connect with what is 'other' - to reach out to that 'mysterious something' - what whispers to us when we encounter an awe-inspiring landscape, or a small unexpected comfort.

What does this have to do with small stones?

Writing small stones is another way of reaching out beyond our small selves to what is 'other'.

After encouraging us to investigate a small piece of ground, which will contain an infinite variety of objects (only some of which we can see), Brazier says:

"...even on a material level, the other is a great mystery. When we struggle to relate to it, we fall back into personalised approximations. Keeping our sense of wonder and our willingness to encounter the other requires a special kind of reaching out."

Whatever your spiritual leanings, we will need 'a special kind of reaching out' to find our small stones.

And what else might we find?

Four days to go... or five if you're just waking up (and your help needed)

2010-12-27T17:03:00.000Z

I hope you all had marvellous Christmasses. We were both feeling a little peaky but we're on our way to recovery. And we have lots of chocolate-eating to catch up with.

There have been a healthy number of hits on the site today, and we're getting new people signing up all the time. It's only four days before we start. How did that happen?

So for the last push...

Do follow us @ariverofstones on Twitter if you're not already, and keep letting people know what you're doing on Facebook etc.

Finally it'd be a great help if you could send this email to ten writers and ten non-writers - choose a few people you think would be interested and a few you're not so sure about - you never know!

Thanks for your help, we much appreciate it - it wouldn't be a river without you, it'd be a little trickle. We'll be back tomorrow with an exercise to get your writing juices going.

Hello – I’m taking part in a new project starting on January the 1^st and I thought you might like to join me.

In an attempt to pay more attention, I will be noticing one thing properly every day (a bird eating berries, a child playing in the street) and writing it down. People from across the world will be joining me and we’ll be creating a ‘river’ of these short pieces of writing.

You can write them down in a notebook or on a blog – and it doesn’t matter if you’ve done any writing before or not. The purpose of the project is to help us to pay attention, and to start the year as we mean to go on.

If you’d like to join us find out more at http://ariverofstones.blogspot.com or email fiona@fionarobyn.com for more information.

It’d also be lovely if you could forward this email to five friends you think might be interested.

Thank you!

Happy holidays....

2010-12-24T09:06:00.000Z

Me and Kaspa would like to wish you all a VERY merry Christmas or non-Christmas.

We're going to be out and about for a few days, eating and opening presents.

We'll return next week to let you know how the river is going.

Until then, Namo Amida Bu (that's the Pureland Buddhist form of Namaste, or a little bow - substitute your own greeting/paying of respect/au revoir!)

9 days. "Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say.”

2010-12-23T10:17:00.000Z

This is one of my heroes, Brenda Ueland. She wrote the cult book about writing - If You Want To Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit. Brenda believed that "Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable", and "Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say.”

She believed in the importance of moodling for all creative people, and she believed we should approach our creative tasks without egotism and without fear of failure. She said a lot of very sensible and fiercely encouraging things.

I'd like to offer a little of the spirit of Brenda today, to those riverofstone participants who haven't been writing for very long, and who feel all wobbly like a just-born calf. It's perfectly normal. Writing does that to you.

We must learn to write through it - the times we feel we'll never write anything worth reading, or that we don't have anything exciting to say. Remember what Brenda said. "Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say.” That means you.

Keep your gorgeous small stones coming. We're so enjoying reading them.

10 days. Fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor.

2010-12-22T10:53:00.000Z

And the snow continues.

Walking on the white Malvern hills a few weeks ago, we were struck by the stark beauty of a crowd of skeleton rosebay willow herb plants (Kaspa took this photo).

Writing small stones is a bit like taking a photo. When you carry a camera, you are also carrying a particular 'way of looking'. Would this work? Which angle would I approach it from? How does that colour look against the sky?

When we are carrying a notebook, we are trying to open all of our senses at once - to be open to receive whatever is before us. Fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor. Denise Levertov speaks about this 'way of being' in her poem, below.

We're not going anywhere today. You can only see the very tops of the wheels of my red Fiat 500, Rosie - and even if we dug her out she's not very good in the snow. I'm staying by the fireside with my cats and laptop and earl grey. And my notebook. And my small-stone-seeking eyes/tongue/ears/nose/fingers.

*

Looking, Walking, Being

"The World is not something to
look at, it is something to be in."
Mark Rudman

I look and look.
Looking's a way of being: one becomes,
sometimes, a pair of eyes walking.
Walking wherever looking takes one.

The eyes
dig and burrow into the world.
They touch
fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor.
World and the past of it,
not only
visible present, solid and shadow
that looks at one looking.

And language? Rhythms
of echo and interruption?
That's
a way of breathing.

breathing to sustain
looking,
walking and looking,
through the world,
in it.

Denise Levertov

11 days. Judicious use of the f-word, and waking up

2010-12-21T10:36:00.000Z

"The small stone is the briefest of poems, somewhat related to the haiku and the American Sentence forms (only without the strictures of syllable counting and whatnot). But process is what’s important here — knowing that there’s a moment out there in the day that waits your noticing it puts you in a state of hunter’s receptivity. And then the writing of it becomes a meditation on intensity, simplicity and presence."

This is how Corvapriya describes small stones on her gorgeous blog, InkSeeds, and I must say I couldn't have put it better myself.

I'm really pleased with how the spirit of small-stone-writing has been resonating with you folks out there.

As Sami says on her blog, 'sami, curiously', "i have but one resolve: BE PRESENT. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ (for f*** sake! why is it so damn difficult!?!)".

It is difficult. It's why serious spiritual practitioners spend 10 hours a day on their derrières or months in a cave or years in the wilderness, trying to let thought after thought (after thought after thought...) go.

We can wake up, one small stone at a time.

Join us.

If you haven't already, check out The River of Stones at the top of the blog. Isn't Kaspa clever. It's all done with pipes, you know. And do follow us at Twitter @ariverofstones, where you'll also be treated to a stream of lovely stones. And do keep telling your friends (thank you). We're getting around 700 hits a day, and 1100 on Sunday alone, which is very heartening. And keep in touch!

(Thank you to Carolee for today's beautiful image. Hop along to her blog for more gorgeousness.)

river of stones - the book (12 days to go)

2010-12-20T12:52:00.000Z

We're very excited about the small stones that will soon be appearing on websites and in notebooks across the world.

We have lots of fine experienced writers already signed up, and we'll also be discovering lots of brand new authors... what a scoop.

It seems like a terrible waste not to preserve some of these stones for posterity.

What we're suggesting is that when the project is finished, anyone who'd like to be considered can send us their ten favourite small stones. We'll choose our very favourites, and compile them into a gorgeous book.

Whether we can include a small stone from everyone or not will depend on how many people become involved, but we promise we'll pack lots of corkers in.

Excited? We are...

(here's more info about my book of small stones. the river of stones will be MUCH better though.)

The River of Stones

2010-12-19T15:14:00.000Z

(if you're new, go see this post first...)

Hello lovely stone writers,

It's been wonderful to see people start writing already, and to taste the anticipation of those yet to write. I wanted to be able to see everyone's writing all in one place so I spent a couple of hours yesterday creating The River of Stones.

As of today (19th December 2010) it includes everyone who has created a new blog just for their stones, and everyone who has started posting in their existing blogs and has put those posts into a category.

If you are using you own blog please do create a category for your "small stone" posts - that way I can filter out the stones and add them to The River of Stones. It will make my life easier if you all use the same name for your category - so I'm going to suggest aros.

I created this using Yahoo! pipes. To get the river of stones widget go to Yahoo! pipes 'a river of stones' and click get widget.

Twitter feed
You can follow The River Of Stones on Twitter: @ariverofstones
and look out for posts tagged #aros

If none of this makes any sense, or you have any questions, please do leave a comment below.

13 days to go... new improved badges (again)

2010-12-19T13:23:00.000Z

(if you're new here, pop here first)

No, it's not another spelling mistake.

We originally used 'NaSmaStoMo' so our river of stones was instantly recognisable to people as a writing project.

We think this has worked, and we've had a very enthusiastic response so far from people across the globe.

However, Na is short for National, which of course the project isn't. So after prompting from a new 'river of stones' participant we've redesigned the badges to reflect this.

We'll use #aros as our hash tag on Twitter from now on.

I'm already excited about 'a river of stones 2012' so it's worth taking the time to get this right.

If you would LIKE the new badges please feel free to help yourself, but it really doesn't matter - they're just as recognisable in the old form.

The other change I've made is to 'officially' add Kaspa as a curator of the project. He's doing just as much as me, especially on the techy bits, so it seems only fair ; ) It's lovely to be working on something together.

An exciting announcement tomorrow....

Happy Sunday!

14 days.... 100 of us so far

2010-12-18T18:50:00.000Z

100 of us so far.

Madeline shows us a stone she's had for a long time here. And Rosemary writes more about paying attention.

More of us are starting early - here's one from Kelly, here's one from Susan, here's one from Vanessa. Is it just us women who are impatient?

Extra chuffed today that we will be enticing jem from -a sound of splinters- to start writing again... her blog will be the sound of shingle.

Keep in touch, let me know if you've started practising, and how you're helping to spread the word.

Enjoy your Sundays.